mam 


mmm 


1*1    'i 
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Thomas  Henry  Huxley 


Modern  English  Writers 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD       .        .        .  Professor  SAINTSBURY. 

R.  L.  STEVENSON  .  L.  COPE  CORNFORD. 

JOHN  RUSKIN Mrs.  MEYNELL. 

TENNYSON        .....  ANDREW  LANG. 

GEORGE  ELIOT        .        .        .        .  A.  T.  QUILLER-COUCH. 

BROWNING C.  H.  HERFORD. 

FROUDE JOHN  OLIVER  HOBBES. 

HUXLEY EDWARD  CLODD. 

THACKERAY CHARLES  WHIBLEY. 

DICKENS W.  E.  HENLEY. 

*#*  Other  Volumes  will  be  announced  in  due  course. 


THOMAS    HENRY 
HUXLEY 


BY 

EDWARD   CLODD 


Who  saw  life  steadily,  and  saw  it  whole. 

— MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 


NEW     YORK 
DODD,    MEAD    AND    COMPANY 

1902 


Copyright,  1902 
BY  DODD,  MEAD  &  COMPANY. 


First  Edition  Published 
March,  IQOS. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 
SANTA  BARBARA 


31 


INSCRIBED    TO 

Mrs.   Huxley 

WITH  DEEP  RESPECT  AND  REGARD 


Prefatory  Note 


IN  the  preparation  of  this  book  there  have  been 
large  drafts  from  the  materials  supplied  by  Mr. 
Leonard  Huxley  in  the  very  admirable  Life  and 
Letters  of  his  father.  The  foot-note  references  to 
that  work  are  sufficiently  denoted  by  the  omission 
of  its  title. 

For  the  convenience  of  readers  who  may  not 
possess  the  original  editions  of  Huxley's  writings, 
the  references  to  them  are,  for  the  most  part,  cited 
from  the  Collected  Essays. 


Contents 


CHRONOLOGY xi 

I.     THE  MAN i 

II.     THE  DISCOVERER          .         .         .         .64 

III.  THE  INTERPRETER       ....       97 

IV.  THE  CONTROVERSIALIST        .         .         .158 
V.     THE  CONSTRUCTOR       ....     224 

NOTE  ON  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE   UN- 
KNOWABLE      .         .         .        .         .     246 

INDEX 249 


Chronology 


1825.  Born  at  Baling  (4th  May). 

1841.  Assistant  to  doctor  at  Rotherhithe. 

1842.  Student  at  Charming  Cross  Hospital  Medical  School. 
1845.  M-  B-  and  Gold  Medallist  for  Anatomy  and  Physiology  at 

University  of  London. 

1845.  Discovered  membrane  of  human  hair  known  as  "Huxley's 

layer." 

1846.  Entered  Naval  Medical  Service. 

1846.  Appointed  assistant-surgeon  of  the  surveying  ship   Rattle- 
snake. 

1849.  Published  memoir  on  the  Family  of  the  Medusa. 

1850.  Returned  to  England:  granted  leave  ashore  to  work  out  re- 

sults of  voyage. 

1851.  Elected  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society. 

1852.  Received  Gold  Medal  of  Royal  Society. 

1853.  Further  leave  ashore  refused:  struck  off  the  Navy  List. 

1853.  Published  article  on  the  Cell  Theory. 

1854.  Appointed  Professor  of  Natural  History  and  Paleontology 

in  Royal  School  of  Mines,  and  Curator  of  Fossils  in 
Museum  of  Practical  Geology. 

1855.  Married  Henrietta  Anne  Heathorn,  of  Sydney. 

1856.  Visited  Switzerland  with  Tyndall. 

1857.  Published  paper  on  The  Structure  and  Motion  of  Glaciers. 
1857.  Appointed  Examiner  in  Physiology  and  Comparative  Anat- 
omy in  University  of  London. 

1857.  Appointed  Fullerian  Professor  of  Comparative  Anatomy  at 

the  Royal  Institution. 

1858.  Appointed  Croonian  Lecturer. 

xi 


Xli  HUXLEY. 

1859.  Published  Croonian  lecture  on  Origin  of  the  Vertebrate 
Skull. 

1859.  Reviewed  the  Origin  of  Species  in  the  Times  (26th  Decem- 
ber). 

1859.  Appointed  Secretary  of  the  Geological  Society. 

1859.  Published  Oceanic  Hydrozoa. 

1860.  Attended   British  Association   Meeting  at   Oxford   (debate 

with  Bishop  Wilberforce). 

1861.  Lectured  on  Relation  of  Man  to  the  rest  of  the  Animal 

Kingdom  at  Edinburgh  and  London. 

1862.  Elected    Hunterian    Professor    at    the    Royal  College  of 

Surgeons. 

1863.  Published  Man's  Place  in  Nature. 

1864.  Appointed  on  Royal  Commission  on  Sea  Fisheries. 

Note. — Huxley  served  between  1863  and  1884  on  ten  Royal  Commissions 
on  Fisheries,  Scientific  Education,  etc. 

1866.  Received  degree  of  LL.D.  Edinburgh. 

1866.  Published  Lessons  in  Elementary  Physiology. 

1868.  Elected  President  of  the  Ethnological  Society. 

1868.  Lectured  on  the  Physical  Basis  of  Life. 

1868.  Published  memoirs  on  the  Classification  of  Birds  and  on 

Intermediate  Animals  between  Birds  and  Reptiles. 

1869.  Elected  President  of  the  Geological  Society. 
1869.  Joined  the  Metaphysical  Society. 

1869.  Published  Introduction  to  the  Classification  of  Animals. 

1870.  Elected  President  of  British  Association  Meeting  at  Liver- 

pool. 
1870.  Elected  member  of  the  first  School  Board  for  London. 

1870.  Published  Lay  Sermons. 

1871.  Appointed  Secretary  of  the  Royal  Society. 

1871.  Broke  down  in  health;  visited  Egypt. 

1872.  Elected  Lord  Rector  of  Aberdeen  University. 

1873.  Published  Critiques  and  Addresses. 

1874.  Lectured  on  Animals  as  Automata   at  British  Association 

Meeting,  Belfast. 

1874.  Lectured  on   Natural   History   as   deputy   to   Sir  Wyville 

Thomson  at  Edinburgh. 

1875.  Took  active  part  in  controversy  on  Vivisection. 

1875.  Published  Practical  Instruction  in  Elementary  Biology. 


CHRONOLOGY.  Xlll 

1876.  Visited  America. 

1877.  Published     American   Addresses;     Physiography;     and   a 

Manual  of  the  Anatomy  of  Invertebrated  Animals. 

1878.  Published  Hume. 

1879.  Received  degree  of  LL.D.  Cambridge. 

1880.  Lectured  on  The  Coming  of  Age  of  the  '  Origin  of  Species  ' 

at  the  Royal  Institution. 

1880.  Published  The  Crayfish;  an   Introduction  to  the  Science  of 

Zoology ;  and  Introductory  Science  Primer. 

1 88 1.  Appointed  Inspector  of  Salmon  Fisheries. 

1 88 1.  Became,  on  departmental  changes  at  the  School  of  Mines, 
Professor  of  Biology  and  Dean  of  the  Royal  College  of 
Science. 

1 88 1.  Published  Science  and  Culture. 

1883.  Elected  President  of  the  Royal  Society. 

1883.  Delivered  the  Rede  Lecture  at  Cambridge  (on  The  Pearly 

Nautilus  and  Evolution). 

1884.  Further  breakdown  in  health. 

1885.  Received  degree  of  D.C.L.  Oxford. 

1885.  Retired  on  pension  from  all  official  appointments. 

1886.  Began  series  of  papers  on  Evolution  of  Theology. 
1888.  Elected  a  Trustee  of  the  British  Museum. 

1888.  Received  Copley  Medal  of  the  Royal  Society. 

1889.  Removed  to  Eastbourne. 

1891.  Published  Social  Diseases  and  Worse  Remedies. 

1892.  Published  Essays  on  Controverted  Questions. 

1892.  Made  a  Privy  Councillor. 

1893.  Delivered  Romanes  Lecture  at  Oxford  (on  Evolution  and 

Ethics). 

1893-94.  Reissued,  with  rearrangement,  the  articles  and  lectures 
in  Lay  Sermons,  etc.,  in  nine  volumes  entitled  Collected 
Essays. 

1894.  Received  Darwin  Medal  of  the  Royal  Society. 

1894.  Attended  British  Association  Meeting,  Oxford. 

1895.  Died  29th  June-     Buried  at  Finchley,  4th  July. 


HUXLEY 


THE    MAN 

THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY,  the  seventh  and  youngest 
child  of  George  and  Rachel  Huxley,  was  born  on  the 
4th  May,  1825,  at  Ealing,  then  a  village  separated  by 
stretches  of  open  country  from  London.  His  father, 
who  was  assistant-master  in  a  semi-public  school 
there,  is  described  by  him  as  a  man  "  rather  too  easy- 
going for  this  wicked  world,"  yet  with  a  certain  tenac- 
ity of  character  which,  since  he  inherited  it,  Huxley 
dryly  says,  "  unfriendly  observers  sometimes  call 
obstinacy."  This,  together  with  a  faculty  for  draw- 
ing, constituted  the  father's  legacy  to  the  son.  It  is 
of  his  mother  that  he  declares  himself  "  physically 
and  mentally "  the  child,  "  even  down  to  peculiar 
movements  of  the  hands  " ;  her  agile  mind,  with  its 
rapid  arrival  at  conclusions,  remained,  he  says,  the 
perilous  but  most  prized  part  of  his  "  inheritance  of 
mother-wit."  His  love  for'her  was  a  passion. 
i 


2  HUXLEY 

But  his  boyhood  was  a  cheerless  time.     Reversing 
Matthew  Arnold's  sunnier  memories:  — 

No  "  rigorous  teachers  seized  his  youth, 
And  purged  its  faith,  and  tried  its  fire, 

Shewed  him  the  high,  white  star  of  truth, 
There  bade  him  gaze,  and  there  aspire." 

He  told  Charles  Kingsley  that  he  was  "  kicked  into 
the  world  a  boy  without  guide  or  training,  or  with 
worse  than  none,"  1  and,  contrasting  Herbert  Spen- 
cer's happier  lot,  says  that  he  "  had  two  years  of  a 
Pandemonium  of  a  school  (between  eight  and  ten), 
and  after  that  neither  help  nor  sympathy  in  any  in- 
tellectual direction  till  he  reached  manhood."  *  On 
the  dreary  week-days  he  was  flung  among  boys  of 
low  type,  and  on  the  drearier  Sundays  he  was  taken 
to  church,  where  the  preacher's  allusions  to  infidels 
left  on  his  mind  the  impression  that  "  such  folks  be- 
longed to  the  criminal  classes."  When  he  was  about 
ten,  the  break-up  of  the  Ealing  school  sent  the 
family,  literally,  to  Coventry,  where,  in  the  irony  of 
fate,  the  shiftless  father  became  manager  of  a 
savings'  bank.  The  daughters  took  to  school-keep- 
ing, and  the  boys  were  left  free  to  browse  among  the 
remnants  of  the  home  library.  Huxley  was  pos- 
sessed of  that  love  of  reading  which,  in  Gibbon's 
famous  words,  he  "  would  not  have  exchanged  for  the 
1 1.  220.  » II.  145. 


THE    MAN  3 

treasures  of  India."  From  boyhood  to  old  age  his 
tastes  were  omnivorous,  ranging  from  science  and 
philosophy  to  the  last  new  fiction.  Dr.  Johnson  said 
that  Burton's  Anatomy  of  Melancholy  took  him  out  of 
bed  two  hours  before  his  usual  time ;  Mutton's 
Geology  kept  Huxley  in  it,  with  blanket  pinned  round 
his  shoulders.  At  twelve  he  had  read  Hamilton's 
essay  On  the  Philosophy  of  the  Unconditioned,  with  the 
result,  he  tells  us,  of  stamping  on  his  mind  "  the 
strong  conviction  that  on  even  the  most  solemn  and 
important  of  questions,  men  are  apt  to  take  cunning 
phrases  for  answers."  Carlyle's  translations  from  the 
German  moved  him  to  teach  himself  a  language 
knowledge  of  which  was  to  be  of  the  utmost  service 
in  his  life-work.  Of  the  influence  which  Sartor 
Resartus  had  upon  him,  he  says,  "  It  led  me  to  know 
that  a  deep  sense  of  religion  was  compatible  with  the 
entire  absence  of  theology." 1 

During  this  formative  period  his  interest  ranged 
from  speculations  on  the  absolute  basis  of  matter  and 
the  crystallisation  of  carbon  to  the  injustice  of  com- 
pelling Dissenters  to  pay  church  rates.  In  the  boy's 
quotation  from  Lessing,  "  I  hate  all  people  who  want 
to  found  sects,"  there  is  the  spirit  of  the  man  who 
said  that  "  science  commits  suicide  when  it  adopts  a 
creed."  In  a  scheme  for  a  "  classification  of  all 
•  I.  220. 


4  HUXLEY 

knowledge"  written  in  a  fragmentary  journal,  kept 
from  his  fifteenth  to  his  seventeenth  year,  there  was 
the  expression  of  that  passion  for  general  principles, 
for  search  after  unity  at  the  core  of  things,  which 
ruled  all  his  observation  and  speculation,  and  which 
is  the  salvation  of  a  man  from  the  evil  of  specialism. 

"  Thus  to  be  a  Seeker  is  to  be  of  the  best  sect  next 
to  a  Finder,"  said  Oliver  Cromwell ;  and  of  himself 
Huxley,  who  at  fifty -three  learned  Greek  that  he 
might  read  Aristotle  in  the  original,  wrote  three  years 
before  his  death,  "  I  have  always  been,  am,  and  pro- 
pose to  remain  a  mere  scholar."  So  wrote  Michael 
Angelo  in  old  age,  "  Imparo  ancora  " — I  am  learning 
still. 

Huxley's  bent,  like  that,  it  may  be  added,  of  both 
Herbert  Spencer  and  the  late  W.  B.  Carpenter,  was 
towards  mechanical  engineering,  and  this  was  mani- 
fest in  his  life-work.  For  his  interest  centred  in  the 
"  architectural  part "  of  organisms,  in  the  adaptation 
of  apparatus  to  function,  and  in  whatever  evidenced 
u  unity  of  plan  in  the  thousands  and  thousands  of 
diverse  living  constructions."  1  Whatever  he  worked 
at,  he  "  visualised  clearly "  by  diagram  or  map  or 
picture. 

He  paid  a  lifelong  penalty  for  his  curiosity  about 
the  mechanism  of  the  human  body.  When  he  was 


THE    MAN  5 

fourteen  he  was  taken  by  some  student  friends  to  a 
post-mortem,  the  result  of  which  was  an  attack  of 
blood-poisoning.  To  this  he  attributed  the  "  hypo- 
chondriacal  dyspepsia  "  which  afflicted  him  to  the  end 
of  his  life.  Although  engineering  was  his  hobby, 
medicine,  at  the  start,  was  his  destiny.  At  sixteen, 
on  the  removal  of  his  family  to  Rotherhithe,  he  was 
placed  as  assistant  to  a  Dr.  Chandler  as  a  preliminary 
to  "  walking  the  hospitals."  Many  of  the  patients 
were  in  more  need  of  food  than  physic,  a  condition 
of  things  which  set  Huxley  wondering  "  why  the 
masses  did  not  sally  forth  and  get  a  few  hours'  eating 
and  drinking  and  plunder  to  their  heart's  content 
before  the  police  could  stop  and  hang  a  few  of 
them."  l 

This  early  contact  with  the  grim  realities  of  the 
social  problem  gave  him  authority  to  be  heard  upon 
the  economic  and  educational  questions  in  which  his 
interest  deepened  with  his  years,  and  to  indicate  to  the 
people  how  they  may  alone  work  out  their  own  salva- 
tion. 

I  believe  in  the  fustian  [he  said],  and  can  talk  to  it 
better  than  to  any  amount  of  gauze  and  Saxony. 
I  want  the  working  classes  to  understand 
that  Science  and  her  ways  are  great  facts  for  them — 
that  physical  virtue  is  the  base  of  all  other,  and  that 
they  are  to  be  clean  and  temperate  and  all  the  rest — 

» I.  16. 


6  HUXLEY 

not  because  fellows  in  black  with  white  ties  tell  them 
so,  but  because  these  are  plain  and  patent  laws  of  na- 
ture which  they  must  obey  under  penalties.1 

Leaving  Mr.  Chandler,  he  was  apprenticed  to  his 
brother-in-law,  Dr.  Scott  (Huxley's  two  sisters  had 
married  doctors),  and  began  study  for  the  matricula- 
tion examination  of  the  University  of  London.  He 
failed  in  this,  but  had  compensation  in  winning  the 
silver  medal  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society,  while  the 
standard  reached  by  his  brother  James  and  himself 
secured  them  free  scholarships  in  the  medical  school 
of  Charing  Cross  Hospital.  In  1845  ^e  passed  his 
M.  B.  at  the  University  of  London  and  made  his  first 
discovery  in  detecting  a  hitherto  unknown  membrane 
at  the  root  of  the  human  hair.  It  is  known  as 
"  Huxley's  layer."  The  next  year  he  acted  on  the 
suggestion  of  a  fellow-student,  Mr.  (now  Sir  Joseph) 
Fayrer,  and  applied  to  Sir  William  Burnet,  then  Di- 
rector of  the  Medical  Service,  for  a  naval  appoint- 
ment. Sir  William  returned  his  visiting  card  "  with 
the  frugal  reminder  "  that  he  might  "  probably  find  it 
useful  on  some  other  occasion,"  but  the  interview 
gained  him  entry  on  the  books  of  Nelson's  old  ship, 
the  Victory,  for  duty  at  Haslar  Hospital.  Then  came 
a  turn  of  the  tide  which,  not  without  ebb,  led  on  to 
fortune,  at  least  to  the  fortune — never,  despite  the 
•I.  138. 


THE    MAN 


7 


discreditable  insinuation  in  PunchJ  a  commercial  one 
— which  Huxley  coveted. 

Owen  Stanley,  son  of  the  Bishop  of  Norwich  and 
brother  of  Dean  Stanley,  was  in  command  of  the 
Rattlesnake,  a  28-gun  frigate  commissioned  to  survey 
the  intricate  passages  within  the  barrier-reef  skirting 
the  eastern  shores  of  Australia,  between  which  colony 
and  the  mother  country  a  shorter  sea-passage  was  de- 
manded by  the  growing  trade.  Captain  Stanley 
wanted  an  assistant-surgeon,  and  on  the  recommenda- 
tion of  Sir  John  Richardson,  the  famous  Arctic  ex- 
plorer, Huxley  was  given  the  post.  It  was  the  best 
possible  apprenticeship  for  the  work  which  lay,  un- 
suspected, before  him — the  solution  of  the  problems 
of  organology,  and  the  indicating  of  their  far-reach- 
ing significance.  Life  had  its  origin  in  water,  and 
therein  the  biologist  finds  his  most  suggestive  material. 
Darwin  and  Joseph  Hooker  had  passed  through  a  like 
curriculum — the  one  in  1831,  and  the  other  in  1839. 

The  Rattlesnake  left  Plymouth  on  the  I2th  De- 
cember, 1846,  two  years  before  Bates  and  Wallace 
sailed  for  exploration  of  the  Amazons.  It  was  a  time 
of  preparation,  each  only  vaguely  knowing  to  what 
ends  he  worked,  but  in  his  measure  contributing  an- 
swer to  the  question  whether  species  were  mutable  or 
permanent. 

1 II.  26. 


8  HUXLEY 

The  conditions  on  board  the  Rattlesnake  contrasted 
ill  with  the  luxurious  equipment  of  exploring  ships 
since  her  time.  She  was  a  man-of-war  of  the  old 
class ;  her  seams  were  leaky ;  the  berths  swarmed 
with  cock-roaches,  and  the  biscuits  with  weevils.  The 
Admiralty  refused  to  supply  any  books,  and  in  the  ab- 
sence of  proper  apparatus  for  sifting  the  contents  of 
the  dredge,  Huxley  had  to  adapt  a  wire  meat-cover. 
The  ship  carried  an  official  naturalist,  whose  chief  care 
was  to  collect  objects  for  museums,  leaving  to  Hux- 
ley's willing  hands  the  dissection  and  examination  of 
the  specimens  brought  up  from  the  deep  sea. 

The  first  long  stay  was  made  at  Sydney,  where 
Huxley  met  his  future  wife,  Henrietta  Annie  Heath- 
orn.  For  her  he  was  "to  serve  longer  and  harder 
than  Jacob  thought  to  serve  for  Rachel,"  of  whom, 
in  immortal  words,  the  poet-chronicler  says,  "  seven 
years  seemed  unto  him  but  a  few  days  for  the  love  he 
had  to  her."  '  Huxley  had  his  reward  in  forty  years 
of  the  closest  and  most  helpful  fellowship. 

The  nature  and  import  of  the  work  accomplished 
by  him  during  the  voyage,  which  came  to  an  end  in 
November,  1849,  Wl^  ^  dealt  w'th  m  t^ie  next  chap- 
ter. Here  it  suffices  to  say  that  while  sundry  reports 
on  marine  creatures,  which  were  sent  to  the  Linnean 
Society,  were  pigeon-holed,  better  fortune  attended  a 
1  Genesis  xxix.  20. 


THE    MAN 


paper  on  the  Medusae  or  jelly-fish  family,  transmitted 
to  the  Royal  Society  through  Bishop  Stanley,  whose 
admirable  History  of  Birds  has  survived  his  episcopal 
charges.  It  was  promptly  published,  and  was  the 
warrant  of  Huxley's  election  into  the  Society  at  the 
early  age  of  twenty-six.  Thus  far  he  could  have  no 
quarrel  with  bishops. 

Back  in  England,  "  equipped  as  a  perfect  zoologist 
and  keen-sighted  ethnologist "  (the  words  are  Vir- 
chow's),  Huxley  obtained  for  a  time  the  privilege  of 
appointment  for  "  particular  service,"  which  enabled 
him  to  work  out  on  shore  the  results  of  the  voyage. 
But  nearly  five  years  of  suspense  and  struggle  were 
to  pass  before  he  secured  a  permanent  appointment 
of  £200  per  annum,  one-half  of  the  modest 
maximum  he  desired.  Writing  to  his  sister  in  1850 
he  says : — 

I  have  no  ambition,  except  as  means  to  an  end,  and 
that  end  is  the  possession  of  a  sufficient  income  to 
marry  upon.  ...  A  worker  I  must  always  be — 
it  is  my  nature — but  if  I  had  .£400  a-year  I  would 
never  let  my  name  appear  to  anything  I  did  or  ever 
shall  do.  It  would  be  glorious  to  be  a  voice  working 
in  secret,  and  free  from  all  those  personal  motives  that 
have  actuated  the  best.1 

He  was  in  the  front  rank  of  anatomists;  in  1852 
his    society   conferred   upon    him  the   Royal   Medal, 
'  I.  62. 


10  HUXLEY 

which,  for  the  £50  worth  of  gold  therein,  he  sold 
eleven  years  after,  to  assist  a  brother's  widow  ;  he  was 
deluged  with  invitations  to  dinners  and  soirees  while 
not  earning  enough  to  pay  his  cab-fare.  He  kept 
fragile  body  and  self-reliant  soul  together  by  writing, 
lecturing,  and  translating.  Toronto,  Aberdeen,  Cork, 
King's  College,  each  in  turn  rejected  him  as  he  sought 
a  professorship  of  natural  history,  and  he  had  thoughts 
of  trying  his  luck  as  a  doctor  in  Australia,  if  only  to 
be  near  his  sweetheart.  Domestic  cares,  his  mother's 
death,  and  his  father's  serious  illness,  added  to  the 
gloom  of  these  five  dreary  years.  But  though  his 
circumstances  ran  low,  his  ideals  soared  high.  In  the 
letter  of  1850  to  his  sister  he  says : — 

I  don't  know  and  I  don't  care  whether  I  shall  ever 
be  what  is  called  a  great  man.  I  will  leave  my  mark 
somewhere,  and  it  shall  be  clear  and  distinct  — 

T.  H.  H.  his  mark  — 

and  free  from  the  abominable  blur  of  cant,  humbug, 
and  self-seeking  which  surrounds  everything  in  this 
present  world — that  is  to  say,  supposing  that  I  am  not 
already  unconsciously  tainted  myself,  a  result  of  which 
I  have  a  morbid  dread.1 

At  the  end  of  1853  tne  Admiralty  commanded  him 

to  join  the  ship  Illustrious;  he  refused,  and  paid  the 

penalty  in  being  struck  off  the  Navy  List.     But,  as 

he  cheerily  said,  "  there  is  always  a  Cape   Horn   in 

1 1.  63. 


THE    MAN  II 

one's  life,"  and,  "  not  without  a  good  deal  of  damage 
to  spars  and  rigging,"  he  rounded  it.  In  July,  1854, 
on  the  transfer  of  his  friend  Edward  Forbes  to  Edin- 
burgh, he  was  appointed  Professor  of  Natural  History 
at  the  School  of  Mines  with  a  salary  of  £200,  which, 
soon  after,  was  doubled  on  his  becoming  naturalist  to 
the  Geological  Survey.  The  next  year  Miss  Heath- 
orn's  parents  brought  her  to  England.  Her  health 
was  so  ,bad  that  a  famous  doctor  gave  her  only  six 
months  to  live.  But  the  faculty  differed;  Huxley 
took  the  brighter  view,  and  wrote  thus  to  Hooker  on 
the  nth  July  : — 

I  terminate  my  Baccalaureate  and  take  my  degree 
of  M.A.trimony  (isn't  that  atrocious  ?)  on  Saturday, 
July  21. 

When  he  was  appointed  to  the  School  of  Mines  he 
told  Sir  Henry  De  la  Beche  that  he  "  didn't  care  for 
fossils,"  the  mechanism  of  the  living  animal  alone  in- 
teresting him.  But  it  came  to  pass  that  during  his 
thirty-one  years'  tenure  of  his  post  the  larger  part  of 
his  work  was  palaeontological.  And  well  that  this  so 
happened,  because,  when  the  battle  over  organic  evo- 
lution was  fought,  Huxley  was  able  to  adduce  out  of 
his  treasury  of  knowledge  a  mass  of  evidence  from 
the  fossil-yielding  rocks  which,  supplemented  by  the 
evidence  from  embryology,  put  the  theory  of  "  descent 


12  HUXLEY 

with  modification  "  on  a  foundation  which  cannot  be 
shaken. 

Routine  work  leaves  little,  if  any,  time  for  original 
investigation.  Administrative  detail  filled  the  larger 
part  of  each  day  with  Huxley ;  his  heart  was  centred 
in  schemes  for  the  diffusion  of  science  ;  the  arrange- 
ment and  cataloguing  of  the  contents  of  the  Jermyn 
Street  Museum  was  a  labour  of  years  ;  he  gave,  un- 
grudgingly, help  in  forming  other  public  as  well  as 
private  collections,  which,  in  his  own  words, 

should  be  large  enough  to  illustrate  the  most  impor- 
tant truths  of  natural  history,  but  not  so  extensive  as 
to  weary  and  confuse  ordinary  visitors. 

But  with  Huxley  this,  although  an  essential,  was  a 
secondary,  part  of  the  business;  with  the  organising 
of  materials  there  went  pan  passu  instruction  in  their 
nature  and  meaning,  involving  courses  of  lectures  and 
series  of  articles,  both  technical  and  popular,  while 
other  public  appointments  made  their  inroads  on  his 
time.  This  would  seem  enough  to  exhaust  the  day, 
and  when  it  is  remembered  that  all  which  he  under- 
took, paid  and  unpaid  alike,  was  done  despite  frequent 
breakdown  from  dyspepsia  and  allied  troubles,  the 
marvel  grows  that  he  found  a  moment  for  original 
research,  or  for  the  wide  and  varied  reading  which, 
fortifying  him  on  every  side,  enabled  him  "  to  put  to 


THE    MAN  13 

flight  the  armies "  of  the  obscurantists  in  science, 
ethics,  and  theology. 

Work  was  his  passion,  method  was  his  salvation  ; 
he  took  care  of  the  minutes  arid  the  hours  took  care 
of  themselves.  And  yet,  like  Gibbon,  who  wrote  — 

While  every  one  looks  on  me  as  a  prodigy  of  appli- 
cation, I  know  myself  how  strong  a  propensity  I  have 
to  indolence, 

we  find  Huxley  accusing  himself  of  an  ingrained 
laziness.1 

On  the  last  night  of  1856,  while  waiting  for  the 
birth  of  his  first  child,  he  made  this  entry  in  his 
journal : 

1856-7-8  must  still  be  "  Lehrjahre  "  to  complete 
training  in  principles  of  Histology,  Morphology, 
Physiology,  Zoology,  and  Geology  by  Monographic 
Work  in  each  department.  1860  will  then  see  me 
well  grounded  and  ready  for  any  special  pursuits  in 
either  of  these  branches.  ...  In  1860  I  may 
fairly  look  forward  to  fifteen  or  twenty  years'  "  Meis- 
terjahre " ;  and  with  the  comprehensive  views  my 
training  will  give  me,  I  think  it  will  be  possible  in 
that  time  to  give  a  new  and  healthier  direction  to  all 
Biological  Science.  To  smite  all  humbugs,  however 
big,  to  give  a  nobler  tone  to  science;  to  set  an  ex- 
ample of  abstinence  from  petty  personal  controversies, 
and  of  toleration  for  everything  but  lying ;  to  be  in- 
different as  to  whether  the  work  is  recognised  as  mine 
or  not,  so  long  as  it  is  done :  are  these  my  aims  ? 
1860  will  show. 

i 1.  268. 


14  HUXLEY 

Half-past  ten  at  night.  Waiting  for  my  child.  I 
seem  to  fancy  it  the  pledge  that  all  these  things  shall 
be. 

Born  five  minutes  before  twelve.  Thank  God. 
New- Year's  Day,  1857.! 

On  the  20th  September,  1860,  a  year  that  was  to 
"  show  "  so  much,  there  was  made  the  last  entry  in 
the  journal,  telling  what  lifelong  sorrow  fell  upon  a 
great  and  tender  soul. 

And  the  same  child,  our  Noel,  our  first-born,  after 
being  for  nearly  four  years  our  delight  and  our  joy, 
was  carried  ofF  by  scarlet  fever  in  forty-eight  hours. 
This  day  week  he  and  I  had  a  great  romp  together. 
On  Friday  his  restless  head,  with  its  bright  blue  eyes 
and  tangled  golden  hair,  tossed  all  day  upon  his 
pillow.  On  Saturday  night,  the  fifteenth,  I  carried 
him  here  into  my  study,  and  laid  his  cold  still  body 
here  where  I  write.  Here  too,  on  Sunday  night, 
came  his  mother  and  I  to  that  holy  leave-taking. 

My  boy  is  gone ;  but  in  a  higher  and  better  sense 
than  was  in  my  mind  when  I  wrote  four  years  ago 
what  stands  above,  I  feel  that  my  fancy  has  been  ful- 
filled. I  say  heartily,  and  without  bitterness — Amen, 
so  let  it  be.2 

In  a  very  remarkable  letter,  written  at  this  time  to 
Charles  Kingsley  in  reply  to  one  setting  forth  the 
warrant  for  belief  in  immortality,  the  attitude  of 
Huxley  from  his  youth  upwards  towards  the  current 
theology  is  shown  clearly.3  He  sees  no  justification 
for  the  belief;  the  arguments  in  its  favour  are  to  his 

'1.151.  '1.152.  '1. 217-222. 


THE    MAN  15 

mind  "  delusive  and  mischievous,"  and  there,  since 
his  was  not  the  spirit  which  denies,  he  leaves  the 
matter.  The  letter  contains  the  already-quoted  re- 
mark that  Sartor  Resartus  led  him  to  knowledge  of 
the  non-dependence  of  religion  on  theology,  religion 
meaning,  as  he  says  elsewhere,  simply  the  reverence 
and  love  for  the  ethical  ideal,  and  the  desire  to  realise 
that  ideal  in  life,  which  every  man  ought  to  feel. 1 
He  adds  :— 

Science  and  her  methods  gave  me  a  resting-place 
independent  of  authority  and  tradition.  Love  opened 
up  to  me  a  view  of  the  sanctity  of  human,  nature,  and 
impressed  me  with  a  deep  sense  of  responsibility. 

In  the  chapter  on  "  The  Everlasting  No  "  in  Sartor, 
Carlyle  had  said  : — 

After  all  the  nameless  woes  that  Inquiry,  which  for 
me,  what  it  is  not  always,  was  genuine  love  of  Truth, 
had  wrought  me,  I  nevertheless  still  loved  Truth  and 
bate  no  jot  of  my  allegiance  to  her. 

In  that  allegiance  Huxley  never  wavered : — 

If  wife  and  child,  and  name  and  fame  were  all  lost 
to  me,  one  after  another,  still  I  would  not  lie. 
.  The  longer  I  live,  the  more  obvious  it  is  to 
me  that  the  most  sacred  act  of  a  man's  life  is  to  say 
and  to  feel,  "  I  believe  such  and  such  to  be  true." 
All  the  greatest  rewards  and  all  the  heaviest  penalties 
of  existence  cling  about  that  act.  The  universe  is 

1  Collected  Essays,  v.  p.  249. 


l6  HUXLEY 

one  and  the  same  throughout ;  and  if  the  condition 
of  my  success  in  unravelling  some  little  difficulty  of 
anatomy  or  physiology  is,  that  I  shall  rigorously  re- 
fuse to  put  faith  in  that  which  does  not  rest  on 
sufficient  evidence,  I  cannot  believe  that  the  great 
mysteries  of  existence  will  be  laid  open  to  me  on 
other  terms.1 

Huxley  summed  up  the  whole  matter  in  his  Rec- 
torial Address  to  the  students  of  Aberdeen  University  : 
"  Veracity  is  the  heart  of  morality."  His  references 
to  the  formative  influences  on  his  life  in  the  letter  to 
Kingsley  are  prefaced  by  the  statement  that  his 
neglected  boyhood  had  been  followed  by  a  profligate 
manhood.  His  words  are,  "  I  confess  to  my  shame 
that  few  men  have  drank  deeper  of  all  kinds  of  sin 
than  I."  Commenting  on  this  in  his  review  of  the 
Life  and  Letters,  Sir  W.  Thiselton-Dyer  says, 
"  Frankly,  I  do  not  believe  a  word  of  it."  And  those 
who  knew  Huxley  in  any  degree  of  intimacy  will 
agree  with  him.  Sir  W.  Thiselton-Dyer  adds : — 

In  a  rather  serious  conversation  I  once  had  with 
him,  he  spoke  of  a  period  in  his  life  when  he  might 
have  taken  to  evil  courses;  but  he  did  not  give  me 
the  smallest  reason  to  suppose  that  in  the  retrospect 
he  saw  more  than  the  existence  of  a  possible  crevasse 
in  his  path  into  which  he  might  have  fallen.2 

The  truth  is  that  we  have  here  the  language  of  ex- 
aggeration born  of  the  desolation  of  the  moment ;  the 
1 1.  217.  •  Nature,  I3th  June,  1901,  p.  146. 


THE    MAN  17 

"  troops  of  follies  and  errors "  1  of  youth  refracted 
through  the  medium  of  tears.  It  is  the  language  of 
Augustine's  Confessions ;  of  Bunyan's  Grace  Abound- 
ing; and  of  the 

many  excellent  persons  whose  moral  character  from 
boyhood  to  old  age  has  been  free  from  any  stain  dis- 
cernible to  their  fellow-creatures,  who  have,  in  their 
autobiographies  or  diaries,  applied  to  themselves,  and 
doubtless  with  sincerity,  epithets  as  severe  as  could  be 
applied  to  Titus  Gates  or  Mrs.  Brownrigg.2 

In  acknowledging  a  birthday  letter  from  one  of  his 
daughters,  Huxley  hopes  that  his  own  imperfections 
may  make  him  deal  the  more  gently  with  those  of 
others.  He  adds  that  he  has  little  toleration  for  the 
"just  man  who  needed  no  repentance,"  and  whose 
smugly  correct  family  circle  "  was  perhaps  as  the  in- 
terior of  an  ice-pail." 3  Walter  Bagehot  remarks 
that  "  in  the  greatest  cases  scientific  men  have  been 
calm  men.  There  is  a  coldness  in  their  fame.  We 
think  of  Euclid  as  of  pure  ice  ;  we  admire  Newton  as 
we  admire  the  •  Peak  of  Teneriffe."  4  The  statement 
is  too  sweeping ;  it  has  no  application  to  Huxley,  in 
whom  was  neither  coldness  nor  detachment.  He  was 
hot-tempered  ;  now  and  again  he  was  austere  to  a 
degree  approaching  severity  :  he  had,  as  with  all 
strong  individualities,  strong  likes  and  dislikes. 5  But 

1 II.  330.  2  Macaulay's  Essays,  "  John  Bunyan,"  iv.  p.  407. 

3  II.  331.  4  Literary  Studies,  ii.  p.  222.  *  II.  409. 


1 8  HUXLEY 

the  anger  and  the  austerity  were  passing  moods ;  they 
were  the  price  which  he  and  others  paid  for  abiding 
virtues;  for  the  "woman's  element"  '  in  him  which 
made  him  cling  to  wife  and  children ;  for  the  quick 
response  to  every  call  of  duty  or  affection ;  for  the 
generous  application  of  great  powers  to  noble  and  un- 
selfish ends.  Of  him  may  be  said  what  Lowell  has 
said  of  Lessing :  "  No  biographical  chemistry  is 
needed  to  bleach  spots  out  of  his  reputation."2  His 
home  was  "  a  focus  of  the  best  affections  not  less 
than  of  intellectual  light."  3  He  loved  anniversaries  ; 
the  devotion  of  his  children  warmed  him  "  better  than 
the  sun,"  and  when  his  gifted  daughter  Marian  died 
in  the  flower  of  womanhood,  he  confessed,  in  the 
depth  of  his  grief,  that  "  man  is  not  a  rational  animal, 
especially  in  his  parental  capacity."  Where  he 
hated,  the  scorn  and  loathing  were  deserved,  for  they 
were  manifest  only  against  the  insincere  and  the 
evasive  ;  if  he  could  not  brook  contradiction,  it  was 
only  where  ignorance  or  folly  vaunted  their  assurance 
and  their  blunders  ;  if  he  could  not  suffer  bores  gladly, 
by  what  right  did  they  compel  a  waste  of  time  un- 
grudgingly given  where  counsel  or  information  were 
honestly  asked,  no  matter  by  whom  ?  For,  like  all 

'  "  I  have  a  woman's  element  in  me." — I.  61. 
*  The  English  Poets  and  other  Essays,  p.  278. 
»  Leslie  Stephen,  on  "  Huxley,"  Nineteenth  Century,  Dec.,  1900, 
p.  917. 


THE    MAN  19 

men  who  loom  large  in  the  public  eye,  he  had  to 
make  enforced  acquaintance  with  that  aggravated 
variety  of  the  species  known  as  the  crank.  Circle- 
squares  and  earth-flatteners  pestered  him  with  pam- 
phlets ;  four-paged  letters  praying  for  his  conversion, 
or,  more  often,  for  his  damnation,  as  an  atheist  of  the 
most  mischievous  type,  were  sent  to  him ;  bulky 
manuscripts,  crammed  with  mad  theories,  which  he 
was  asked  to  revise  and  get  published,  were  left  at  his 
house.  Sometimes  the  comic  side  of  the  matter 
appealed  to  him,  as  witness  this  note  to  his  friend  Sir 
John  Donnelly  : — 

I  had  a  letter  from  a  fellow  yesterday  morning  who 
must  be  a  lunatic,  to  the  effect  that  he  had  been  read- 
ing my  essays,  thought  I  was  just  the  man  to  spend  a 
month  with,  and  was  coming  down  by  the  five  o'clock 
train,  attended  by  his  seven  children  and  his  mother- 
in-law  ! 

Frost  being  over,  there  was  lots  of  boiling  water 
ready  for  him,  but  he  did  not  turn  up  ! 

Wife  and  servants  expected  nothing  less  than  as- 
sassination !  * 

The  entry  in  his  journal,  "  1860  will  show,"  had 
deeper  significance  than  Huxley  dreamed  when  he 
made  it.  In  1858,  he  had  delivered  a  lecture  on  the 
origin  of  the  vertebrate  skull,  in  which  he  demolished 
a  theory  propounded  by  Oken,  supported  by  Goethe, 
1 II.  372- 


2O  HUXLEY 

and  indorsed  by  Owen.  At  that  time  the  influence 
of  Owen  in  biological  science  was  supreme  and  un- 
challenged, and  it  needed  no  small  courage  to  tell  so 
high  an  authority  that  even  he  might  sometimes  be  in 
error.  Moreover,  the  task  was  not  easier  when,  as 
experience  showed,  Owen  was  no  fair  fighter,  and 
given  to  sacrificing  truth  to  expediency. 

As  Huxley  cared  nothing  for  authority,  and  every- 
thing for  truth,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  result  was 
an  "internecine  feud  "  between  them.  The  breach 
was  widened  on  the  publication  of  the  Origin  of 
Species;  an  event  which,  in  Huxley's  words,  "marks 
the  Hejira  of  Science  from  the  idolatries  of  special 
creation  to  the  purer  faith  of  Evolution."  *  In  a 
paper  on  the  Characters,  Principles  of  Division,  and 
Primary  Groups  of  the  Class  Mammalia,  read  by  Owen 
before  the  Linnean  Society  in  1859,  ne  referred  to 
certain  cerebral  structures  as  "  peculiar  to  the  genus 
Homo,"  and  added  that  the  "  peculiar  mental  powers 
associated  with  this  highest  form  of  brain"  war- 
ranted the  placing  of  man  in  a  distinct  sub-class  of 
the  Mammalia. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  British  Association  at  Ox- 
ford on  28th  June,  1860,  Owen  emphasised  the  state- 
ment that  "  the  brain  of  the  gorilla  presented  more 

1  Review  of  Haeckel's  Antkropogenie.  Academy,  2d  January, 
1875- 


THE    MAN  21 

differences,  as  compared  with  the  brain  of  man,  than 
it  did  when  compared  with  the  brains  of  the  very 
lowest  and  most  problematical  of  the  Quadrumana." 
To  this  Huxley,  in  polite  English,  gave  the  lie  direct, 
and  pledged  himself  to  "justify  that  unusual  pro- 
cedure elsewhere."1  Two  days  after,  by  mere 
chance,  he  was  present  at  the  reading  of  a  paper  by 
Dr.  Draper  On  the  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe 
considered  with  reference  to  the  views  of  Mr.  Darwin. 
In  the  discussion  which  followed,  Bishop  Wilber- 
force,  throwing  a  glance  at  Huxley,  ended  a  suave 
and  superficial  speech  by  asking  him  "  as  to  his  belief 
in  being  descended  from  an  ape.  Is  it  on  his  grand- 
father's or  his  grandmother's  side  that  the  ape  an- 
cestry comes  in  ? "  Huxley  did  not  rise  till  the 
meeting  called  for  him ;  then  he  let  himself  go.2 
"  The  Lord  hath  delivered  him  into  mine  hands,"  he 
said  in  undertone  to  Sir  Benjamin  Brodie.  After 
showing  how  ill-equipped  was  the  Bishop  for  con- 
troversy upon  the  general  question  of  organic  evolu- 
tion, although  it  was  an  open  secret  that  Owen  had 
primed  him  for  the  contest,  Huxley  said  :  "  You  say 
that  development  drives  out  the  Creator,  but  you 
assert  that  God  made  you ;  and  yet  you  know  that 
you  yourself  were  originally  a  little  piece  of  matter, 

1  Man's  Place  in  Nature,  p.  114  (1863  edition). 
3  Letter  to  F.  Darwin,  i.  p.  187. 


22  HUXLEY 

no  bigger  than   the  end   of  this  gold  pencil-case  ? " 
Then  followed  the  famous  retort : — 

I  asserted,  and  I  repeat,  that  a  man  has  no  reason 
to  be  ashamed  of  having  an  ape  for  his  grandfather. 
If  there  were  an  ancestor  whom  I  should  feel  shame 
in  recalling  it  would  rather  be  a  man — a  man  of  rest- 
less and  versatile  intellect — who,  not  content  with 
success  in  his  own  sphere  of  activity,  plunges  into 
scientific  questions  with  which  he  has  no  real  ac- 
quaintance, only  to  obscure  them  by  an  aimless 
rhetoric,  and  distract  the  attention  of  his  hearers  from 
the  real  point  at  issue  by  eloquent  digressions  and 
skilled  appeals  to  religious  prejudice.1 

The  rebuke  was  supplemented  in  an  article  in  the 
Natural  History  Review,  January,  1861,  on  the 
"  Zoological  Relation  of  Man  with  the  Lower  Ani- 
mals," wherein  Huxley  redeemed  his  promise  to  re- 
fute Owen,  and  proved  that  "  the  brains  of  the  lower 
true  apes  and  monkeys  differ  far  more  widely  from 
the  brain  of  the  orang  than  the  brain  of  the  orang 
differs  from  that  of  man."  * 

Whether  [he  says],  as  some  think,  man  is,  by  his 
origin,  distinct  from  all  other  living  beings,  or 
whether,  on  the  other  hand,  as  others  suppose,  he  is 
the  result  of  the  modification  of  some  other  mammal, 
his  duties  and  his  aspirations  must,  I  apprehend,  re- 
main the  same.  The  proof  of  his  claim  to  inde- 

1  There  is  a  good  portrait  of  Huxley  at  this  time  in  Reminis- 
cences of  Oxford,  by  Rev.  W.  Tuckwell. 
«P.84. 


THE    MAN  23 

pendent  parentage  will  not  change  the  brutishness  of 
man's  lower  nature ;  nor,  except  to  those  valet  souls 
who  cannot  see  greatness  in  their  fellow  because  his 
father  was  a  cobbler,  will  the  demonstration  of  a 
pithecoid  pedigree  one  whit  diminish  man's  divine 
right  of  kingship  over  nature ;  nor  lower  the  great 
and  princely  dignity  of  perfect  manhood,  which  is  an 
order  of  nobility,  not  inherited,  but  to  be  won  by  each 
of  us,  so  far  as  he  consciously  seeks  good  and  avoids 
evil,  and  puts  the  faculties  with  which  he  is  endowed 
to  their  fittest  use.1 

Notwithstanding  "  the  crushing  evidence  from  orig- 
inal dissections  of  numerous  apes'  brains "  adduced 
by  Rolleston,  Flower,  and  other  comparative  anato- 
mists, Owen  repeated  and  never  retracted  the  thing 
which  he  must  have  known  to  be  false :  the  question 
between  Huxley  and  himself  therefore  became  one  of 
"  personal  veracity,"  and  led  to  a  permanent  rupture. 
Moreover,  Owen  was  known  to  have  written  an  ad- 
verse notice  of  the  Origin  of  Species  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review  of  April,  1860,  and  to  have  inspired  Wilber- 
force  in  the  preparation  of  his  article  upon  the  book 
in  the  Quarterly  Review  of  the  following  July,  an 
article  of  which  Huxley  said  — 

It  is  a  production  which  should  be  bound  up  in  good 
stout  calf,  or  better,  asses'  skin,  if  such  material  is  to 
be  had,  by  the  curious  book-collector,  together  with 
Brougham's  attack  on  the  undulatory  theory  of  light 
when  it  was  first  propounded  by  Young. 

1  Ib.t  p.  67. 


24  HUXLEY 

The  outcome  of  all  this  was  his  first,  and,  in  many 
respects,  his  most  important  book,  Evidence  as  to 
Man's  Place  in  Nature,  which,  based  upon  lectures 
delivered  to  working  men  in  London,  and  at  the 
Philosophical  Institution  of  Edinburgh,  was  published 
in  1863.  He  was  no  superficial  student  of  his  kind  ; 
he  was  anthropologist  as  well  as  anatomist  j  he  had 
studied  in  the  book  of  the  world  more  than  in  the 
world  of  books.  As  he  told  an  audience  in  1882, 
it  had  been  his  fate 

to  be  familiar  with  almost  every  form  of  society,  from 
the  uncivilised  savage  of  Papua  and  Australia  and  the 
civilised  savages  of  the  slums  and  dens  of  the  pov- 
erty-stricken parts  of  great  cities,  to  those  who,  per- 
haps, are  occasionally  the  somewhat  over-civilised 
members  of  our  upper  ten  thousand.1 

He  saw  with  Herbert  Spencer  and  Darwin  (who 
had  been  content  to  throw  out  a  bare  hint  at  the  end 
of  his  book)  that  if  the  processes  of  what  is  called 
the  law  of  Evolution  are  applicable  anywhere,  they 
are  applicable  everywhere  ;  that  when  once  the  funda- 
mental relation  of  man  to  the  lower  animals,  so  far  as 
his  bodily  structure  and  functions  are  concerned,  is 
proven,  inquiry  into  the  relation  of  his  mental  ap- 
paratus and  faculties  to  theirs  must  follow,  and, 
with  this,  the  study  of  his  intellectual  and  spiritual 
development,  and  of  his  progress  from  the  selfish- 
1  Coll.  Essays,  iii.  p.  164. 


THE    MAN  25 

ness  of  the  primitive  horde  to  the  comity  of  na- 
tions. Hence,  as  he  says  in  the  second  division  of 
the  book  — 

The  question  of  questions  for  mankind — the  problem 
which  underlies  all  others,  and  is  more  deeply  inter- 
esting than  any  other — is  the  ascertainment  of  the 
place  which  Man  occupies  in  nature  and  of  his  relation 
to  the  universe  of  things.  Whence  our  race  has 
come  ;  what  are  the  limits  of  our  power  over  nature 
and  of  nature's  power  over  us ;  to  what  goal  we  are 
tending  j  are  the  problems  which  present  themselves 
anew  and  with  undiminished  interest  to  every  man 
born  into  the  world.1 

While,  however,  this  interest  in  ultimate  problems, 
evidenced  in  the  journal  of  his  boyhood,  grew  with  his 
years,  it  absorbed  no  undue  proportion  of  his  time. 
Man  in  his  relation  to  his  fellows  had  more  interest 
for  him,  and  explains  Huxley's  activities  in  all  things 
affecting  the  body  politic,  and  the  social  progress  of 
his  kind.  Needless  to  say  that  he  who  was  all  for 
truth  was  likewise  all  for  freedom.  In  1862,  when 
the  Civil  War  in  America  was  raging,  and  when 
Gladstone  was  telling  us  that  Jefferson  Davis  had 
"  made  a  nation,"  Huxley  never  doubted  that  slavery 
was  doomed.  Not  that  he  believed  in  the  negro  ;  he 
knew  how  permanent  are  the  natural  inequalities  of 
races,  and  how  hopeless,  except  in  the  rarest  cases,  it 

1  P.  56. 


26  HUXLEY 

is  to  look  for  any  elevation  of  the  sensuous  and  vola- 
tile black,  charged  as  he  is  with  animal  instincts  ac- 
cumulated beneath  the  tropical  suns  of  unnumbered 
years.  But  he  was  for  the  North,  because  "  slavery 
means  bad  political  economy,  bad  social  morality,  and 
a  bad  influence  upon  free  labour  and  freedom  all  over 
the  world."  1  Two  years  later,  he  joined  the  Jamaica 
Committee,  formed  to  prosecute  Governor  Eyre  for 
the  execution  of  the  negro  Gordon,  because  "  English 
law  does  not  permit  good  persons  as  such  to  strangle 
bad  persons,  as  such." 2 

He  was  in  favour  of  the  emancipation  of  women, 
of  the  removal  of  every  obstacle  in  the  way  of  their 
intellectual  advancement  and  development.3  Writing 
to  Miss  Jex  Blake  about  her  difficulty  in  obtaining  a 
medical  education,  he  said 

that  he  was  at  a  loss  to  understand  on  what  grounds 
of  justice  or  public  policy,  a  career  which  is  open  to 
the  weakest  and  most  foolish  of  the  male  sex  should 
be  forcibly  closed  to  women  of  vigour  and  capacity. 

They  should,  if  they  so  pleased, 

become  merchants,  barristers,  politicians.  Let  them 
have  a  fair  field,  but  let  them  understand,  as  the 
necessary  correlative,  that  they  are  to  have  no  favour. 

1 1.  252.  In  like  manner,  Darwin,  writing  at  this  time  to  Asa 
Gray,  says :  "  Great  God  !  how  I  should  like  to  see  the  greatest 
curse  on  earth — slavery — abolished!  " — Life  and  Letters,  ii.  p.  375. 

•1.280.  •!.    212. 


THE    MAN  27 

Let  Nature  alone  sit  high  above  the  lists,  "  rain  in- 
fluence and  judge  the  prize." 

But  the  prize,  he  was  sure,  would  not  be  theirs, 
since  the  most  Darwinian  of  theorists  will  not  ven- 
ture to  propound  the  doctrine  that  the  physical  disabil- 
ities under  which  women  have  hitherto  laboured  in 
the  struggle  for  existence  with  men  are  likely  to  be 
removed  by  even  the  most  skilfully  conducted  process 
of  educational  selection.1 

Strongly  convinced,  as  the  most  pronounced  indi- 
vidualist can  be,  that  it  is  desirable  that  every  man 
should  be  free  to  act  in  every  way  which  does  not 
limit  the  corresponding  freedom  of  his  fellow-man,  he 
made  his  practical  protest  against  the  liberty-infrin- 
ging Deceased  Wife's  Sister  Bill  in  approving  the 
union  of  one  of  his  daughters  with  the  husband  of 
her  late  sister  Marian.  And  while  knowing,  as  few 
knew  so  well,  what  an  "  immense  amount  of  remedi- 
able misery  exists  among  us,"  misery  which,  "  if  not 
effectually  dealt  with,  will  destroy  modern  civilisa- 
tion," he  opposed  the  means  adopted  by  the  Salvation 
Army  to  cope  with  it,  not  because  of  its  "  Corybantic 
Christianity "  and  coarse  dogmas,  but  because  a 
fanatical  despotism  controls  it. 

Few  social  evils  are  of  greater  magnitude  than 
uninstructed  and  unchastened  religious  fanaticism  ;  no 
personal  habit  more  surely  degrades  the  conscience 
and  the  intellect  than  blind  and  unhesitating  obedience 
to  unlimited  authority.  Undoubtedly,  harlotry  and 
1  Lay  Sermons,  p.  22. 


28  HUXLEY 

intemperance  are  sore  evils,  and  starvation  is  hard  to 
bear,  or  even  to  know  of;  but  the  prostitution  of  the 
mind,  the  soddening  of  the  conscience,  the  dwarfing 
of  manhood,  are  worse  calamities. ' 

By  the  time  that  Evidence  as  to  Man's  Place  in 
Nature  was  written,  Huxley  had  command  of  a  style 
which,  in  the  judgment  of  Sir  Spencer  Walpole, — a 
judgment  with  which  few  will  be  found  to  disagree, 
— "  made  him  the  greatest  master  of  prose  of  his 
time." 2  Apt  in  application  to  him  is  Caxton's 
tribute  to  Chaucer,  "  for  he  writeth  no  void  words, 
but  all  his  matter  is  full  of  high  and  quick  sentence." 
Yet  with  a  great  price  bought  he  this  freedom  of 
ready  speech  and  pen.  Those  who  heard,  and,  hear- 
ing, can  never  forget,  his  wonderful  discourse  On  the 
Coming  of  Age  of  the  Origin  of  Species^  at  the  Royal 
Institution  in  1880,  when,  without  notes,  he  told  the 
story  of  that  epoch-making  book  in  clear  and  force- 
ful English  which  held  his  audience  spellbound,  may 
learn  with  surprise  that  his  early  essays  upon  the  plat- 
form boded  ill  for  his  success.  But  he,  who  all  the 
days  of  his  life  was  at  school,  profited  by  criticism  of 
the  kind  which  came  from  a  local  institute,  begging 
"not  to  have  that  young  man  again  "  ;  from  working 
men ;  and  from  members  of  the  Royal  Institution. 
As  a  writer,  he  had  served  a  useful  apprenticeship  in 

1  Coll.  Essays,  ix.  p.  244.  «  II.    25. 


THE    MAN  29 

reviewing  and  popular  "  pot-boiling,  whereby  there  is 
acquired  the  art  of  condensation  and  simplification  of 
a  subject " ;  while  a  retentive  memory  utilised  the 
stores  of  years  of  miscellaneous  reading  in  his  own 
and  other  languages  for  example  and  allusion. 

But  all  this  would  have  availed  little  in  the  absence 
of  that  mother-wit  which  gave  him  quick  fnsight  into 
things ;  and  of  that  passion  for  logical  symmetry 
whereby  he  made  clear  to  others  what  he  saw  clearly 
himself.  He  followed  methods,  not  models;  he 
"  doubted  the  wisdom  of  attempting  to  mould  one's 
style  by  any  other  process  than  that  of  striving  after 
the  clear  and  forcible  expression  of  definite  concep- 
tions." In  commending  the  study  of  Hobbes  for 
dignity,  of  Swift  for  concision  and  clearness,  and  of 
Defoe  and  Goldsmith  for  simplicity,1  he  commended 
the  qualities  with  which  his  own  work  is  charged. 
Ars  est  celare  artem,  and  deftly  enough  has  he  effaced 
the  traces  of  the  labour  which  the  preparation  of  his 
lectures  and  his  writing  cost  him.  In  1860  he  wrote 
to  Hooker,  "  It  becomes  more  and  more  difficult  to 
me  to  finish  things  satisfactorily  "  ; 2  and  thirty  years 
after,  in  a  letter  to  M.  de  Varigny,  he  says  : — 

I  have  a  great  love  and  respect  for  my  native 
tongue  [that  "  noble  instrument  of  thought,"  he  else- 
where calls  it],  and  take  great  pains  to  use  it  properly. 

1 II.  284;  and  see  Coll.  Essays,  vi.  p.  xii.  2I.  215. 


3O  HUXLEY 

Sometimes  I  write  essays  half-a-dozen  times  before  I 
can  get  them  into  the  proper  shape,  and  I  believe  I 
become  more  fastidious  as  I  grow  older.1 

The  nine  volumes  of  Collected  Essays  bear  evidence 
throughout  to  Huxley's  supreme  skill  as  an  interpreter, 
and  to  his  genius  for  constructing  while  he  de- 
molished. Miscellaneous  as  are  their  contents,  they 
have  the  unity  which  is  inspired  by  a  central  idea. 
With  the  exception  of  a  verbal  correction,  and  of  a 
slightly  qualifying  foot-note,  here  and  there,  each 
stands  as  it  was  originally  written.  Revision  could 
only  have  impaired  their  stately,  lucid,  and  sonorous 
prose,  while  to  their  main  subject-matter  all  sub- 
sequent additions  to  knowledge  have  brought  only 
confirmation. 

As  for  his  letters,  with  which  his  son  has,  wisely, 
largely  filled  his  biography,  even  where  traces  of 
hurry  may  be  noted,  there  is  never  a  slovenly 
sentence ;  the  gist  of  an  essay  is  often  packed  in  a 
few  lines,  and  the  passion  to  put  things  in  such  a  way 
that  the  meaning  may  be  seen  at  a  glance  is  as  ap- 
parent as  in  the  more  elaborate  compositions.  And 
the  humorous  touches,  sparsely,  but  always  effectively, 
applied  in  these,  are,  in  the  letters  to  friends  and 
familiars,  thrown  in  freely,  with  a  boy-like  enjoyment 
of  the  fun. 

»II.  291. 


THE    MAN  31 

In  the  limits  of  a  sketch  which  permits  only  of  an 
attempt  to  portray  the  salient  features  of  Huxley's 
character,  and  to  indicate  his  attitude  towards  the 
burning  questions  of  his  time,  confusion  rather  than 
clearness  would  result  from  import  of  details  of  the 
less  eventful  years.  Hence  the  sometimes  abrupt 
passage  from  one  period  to  another,  leaving  the  blanks 
to  be  filled  up  by  reference  to  the  brief  chronological 
table  which  precedes  this  outline. 

In  1870,  perhaps  the  busiest  year  of  Huxley's  busy 
life,  he  was  urged  to  offer  himself  as  a  candidate  for 
the  newly-formed  School  Board  for  London.  His 
many  commitments  made  him  hesitate  to  stand,  but 
he  consented,  because  the  position  gave  him  a  coveted 
chance  of  helping  to  put  into  practice  the  theories  of 
education  which  he  had  long  advocated.  The  op- 
portunity was  given  him ;  he  came  out  second  on  the 
poll.  His  views  upon  the  subject  are  scattered 
through  many  lectures  and  essays,  but  their  consist- 
ency permits  brief  presentment.  He  contended  that 
education  should  be  "  free  and  equal  "  ;  the  business 
of  the  school  boards  being  the  provision  of  "  a  ladder 
reaching  from  the  gutter  to  the  university,  along 
which  every  child  in  the  three  kingdoms  should  have 
the  chance  of  climbing  as  far  as  he  was  fit  to  go."  l 
That  the  race  is  to  the  swift  and  the  battle  to  the 

1  Coll.  Essays,  iii.  p.  424. 


32  HUXLEY 

strong,  was  added  reason  for  according  equality  of  op- 
portunity :  Nature  might  be  depended  upon  to  let 
the  incompetent  find  their  level.  In  physical  training, 
drill  and  the  simpler  kind  of  gymnastics  should  be 
taught,  the  importance  of  this  being  paramount  in  the 
case  of  town-bred  children  who,  shut  up  in  sunless 
alleys,  have  to  amuse  themselves  with  "  marbles  and 
chuck-farthings  instead  of  cricket  or  hare-and- 
hounds."  He  would  have  girls  taught  the  elements 
of  household  work,  if  a  supply  of  competent  servants 
and  of  thrifty  housewives  is  to  be  maintained.  In 
mental  training,  after  the  "  three  R's,"  reading  being 
taught  so  as  to  make  it  a  pleasure  and  incentive,  fore- 
most place  should  be  given  to  some  one  or  more  of 
the  natural  sciences,  because  these  bring  the  faculties 
of  observation  and  inquiry  into  play,  and  because,  in 
teaching  a  child  the  nature  and  properties  of  things, 
he  is  shown  that  the  method  of  reaching  knowledge 
of  these  is  to  be  applied  to  every  other  branch  of 
knowledge. 

Let  every  child  be  instructed  in  those  general  views 
of  the  phenomena  of  Nature  for  which  we  have  no 
exact  English  name.  The  nearest  approximation  to 
a  name  for  what  I  mean,  and  which  we  possess,  is 
"  physical  geography."  '  The  Germans  have  a  bet- 
ter, Erdkunde  ("  earth  knowledge  "  or  "  geology  "  in 

'The  more  inclusive,  but  somewhat  indefinite,  term  "physi- 
ography," has  since  come  into  use. 


THE    MAN 


33 


its  etymological  sense),  that  is  to  say,  a  general  knowl- 
edge of  the  earth,  and  what  is  on  it,  in  it,  and  about 
it.  The  child  asks,  "  What  is  the  moon,  and  why 
does  it  shine  ?  "  "  What  is  this  water,  and  where 
does  it  run  ?  "  "  What  is  the  wind  ?  "  "  What 
makes  the  waves  in  the  sea?"  "Where  does  this 
animal  live,  and  what  is  the  use  of  that  plant  ?  "  And 
if  not  snubbed  and  stunted  by  being  told  not  to  ask 
foolish  questions,  there  is  no  limit  to  the  intellectual 
craving  of  a  young  child  ;  nor  any  bounds  to  the 
slow,  but  solid,  accretion  of  knowledge  and  develop- 
ment of  the  thinking  faculty  in  this  way.  To  all 
such  questions,  answers  which  are  necessarily  incom- 
plete, though  true  as  far  as  they  go,  may  be  given  by 
any  teacher  whose  ideas  represent  real  knowledge  and 
not  mere  book-learning ;  and  a  panoramic  view  of 
Nature,  accompanied  by  a  strong  infusion  of  the 
scientific  habit  of  mind,  may  thus  be  placed  within 
the  reach  of  every  child  of  nine  or  ten.1 

Huxley  deemed  it  necessary  for  everybody,  whether 
for  a  longer  or  shorter  period,  to  learn  to  draw — a 
thing  quite  feasible,  since  everybody  can  be  taught  to 
write,  and  writing  is  a  form  of  drawing.  The  value 
of  this  cannot  be 

exaggerated,  because  it  gives  the  means  of  training 
the  young  in  attention  and  accuracy,  the  two  things 
in  which  all  mankind  are  more  deficient  than  in  any 
other  mental  quality  whatever.2 

Among  scientific  topics  he  would  include  the 

elements  of  the  theory  of  political  and  social  life, 
which,  strangely  enough,  it  never  seems  to  occur  to 

1  Lay  Sermons,  p.  55.  *  Coll.  Essays,  iii.  p.  183. 


34  HUXLEY 

anybody  to  teach  a  child.  I  would  have  the  history 
of  our  own  country,  and  of  all  the  influences  which 
have  been  brought  to  bear  upon  it,  with  incidental 
geography,  taught,  not  as  a  mere  chronicle  of  reigns 
and  battles,  not  as  evidence  that  Providence  has  al- 
ways been  on  the  side  of  the  Whigs  or  Tories,  but 
as  a  chapter  in  the  development  of  the  race,  and  the 
history  of  civilisation.1 

Literature  should  have  a  large  place,  because 

an  exclusively  scientific  training  will  bring  about  a 
mental  twist  as  surely  as  an  exclusively  literary  train- 
ing. For  literature  is  the  greatest  of  all  sources  of 
refined  pleasure,  and  there  is  scope  enough  for  the 
purposes  of  liberal  education  in  the  study  of  the  rich 
treasures  of  our  own  language  alone.  ...  I  have 
said  before,  and  I  repeat  it  here,  that  if  a  man  cannot 
get  literary  culture  of  the  highest  kind  out  of  his 
Bible,  and  Chaucer,  and  Shakespeare,  he  cannot  get  it 
out  of  anything,  and  I  would  assuredly  devote  a  very 
large  portion  of  the  time  of  every  English  child  to 
the  careful  study  of  models  of  English  writing  of 
such  varied  and  wonderful  kind  as  we  possess,  and, 
what  is  still  more  important,  and  still  more  neglected, 
the  habit  of  using  that  language  with  precision,  with 
force,  and  with  art.2 

These,  together  with  translations  of  the  best  ancient 
and  modern  works,  where  time  or  circumstance  do  not 
permit  of  the  learning  of  foreign  languages,  Huxley 
counted  among  the  essentials.  The  law  of  propor- 
tion, non  multa,  sed  multum,  must  be  observed  if  there 
is  to  be  any  thoroughness  in  education,  and  if  the 

1  Id.,  iii.  p.  184.  *  Coll.  Essays,  iii.  pp.  109,  185. 


THE     MAN  35 

freshness  and  vigour  of  body  and  mind  are  to  be 
maintained,  as  they  can  be  only  by  avoidance  of  "  the 
educational  abomination  of  desolation  of  the  present 
day — the  stimulation  of  young  people  to  work  at  high 
pressure  by  incessant  competitive  examinations."  l 

A  generation  has  passed  since  these  words  were 
written,  and  things  remain  as  they  were.  Education, 
whether  in  public  or  elementary  school,  is  as  bad 
as  it  can  be.  It  belies  its  name.  There  is  no 
"drawing-out,"  but  only  a  cramming-in ;  no  culti- 
vation of  observation,  of  reasoning,  or  reflection ; 
only  the  teaching  of  a  crowd  of  facts  without  making 
clear  their  relation,  and  hence  no  incitement  to  inde- 
pendent thought. 

Technical  training,  the  importance  of  which  Hux- 
ley enforced  in  a  remarkable  essay  on  "  The  Struggle 
for  Existence  in  Human  Society," 2  he  left  to  the 
workshop,  "  as  the  only  real  school  for  a  handicraft." 

In  moral  training  ;  since  each  child  is 

a  member  of  a  social  and  political  organisation  of 
great  complexity,  and  has,  in  future,  to  fit  himself 
into  that  organisation,  or  be  crushed  by  it,  it  is  need- 
ful not  only  that  boys  and  girls  should  be  made  ac- 
quainted with  the  elementary  laws  of  conduct,  but 
that  their  affections  should  be  trained  so  as  to  love 
with  all  their  hearts  that  conduct  which  tends  to  the 
attainment  of  the  highest  good  for  themselves  and 

1  Ib.,  Hi.  p.  410.  *  Ib.,  ix.  pp.  223-225. 


36  HUXLEY 

their  fellow-men,  and  to  hate  with  all  their  hearts  that 
opposite  course  of  action  which  is  fraught  with  evil.1 

Lacking  this,  intellectual  training  may  be  as  produc- 
tive of  harm  as  of  good ;  reading,  writing,  and  cipher- 
ing may  equip  a  youth  for  forgery,  and  training  in 
mechanics  make  him  an  expert  burglar.  In  the  year 
before  his  election  on  the  School  Board,  Huxley  thus 
summed  up  what  in  his  judgment  is  comprised  in  a 
liberal  education : — 

That  man,  I  think,  has  had  a  liberal  education  who 
has  been  so  trained  in  youth  that  his  body  is  the  ready 
servant  of  his  will,  and  does  with  ease  and  pleasure 
all  the  work  that,  as  a  mechanism,  it  is  capable  of; 
whose  intellect  is  a  clear,  cold  logic-engine,  with  all  its 
parts  of  equal  strength  and  in  smooth  working  order ; 
ready,  like  a  steam-engine,  to  be  turned  to  any  kind 
of  work,  and  spin  the  gossamers  as  well  as  forge  the 
anchors  of  the  mind  ;  whose  mind  is  stored  with  the 
knowledge  of  the  great  and  fundamental  truths  of 
nature  and  of  the  laws  of  her  operations ;  one  who,  no 
stunted  ascetic,  is  full  of  fire  and  life,  but  whose  pas- 
sions are  trained  to  come  to  heel  by  a  vigorous  will, 
the  servant  of  a  tender  conscience;  who  has  learned 
to  love  all  beauty,  whether  of  nature  or  of  art,  to  hate 
all  vileness,  and  to  respect  others  as  himself.  Such 
an  one,  and  no  other,  I  conceive,  has  had  a  liberal 
education  ;  for  he  is,  as  completely  as  a  man  can  be, 
in  harmony  with  Nature.  He  will  make  the  best  of 
her,  and  she  of  him.  They  will  get  on  together 
rarely :  she  as  his  ever  beneficent  mother ;  he  as  her 
mouthpiece,  her  conscious  self,  her  minister  and 
interpreter.2 

1  Coll.  Essays,  iii.  p.  393.  *  Lay  Sermons,  p.  30. 


THE    MAN  37 

In  moral  training,  or  the  application  of  knowledge 
to  conduct,  Huxley  would  accord  no  place  to  theol- 
ogy. If  the  various  denominations,  whether  Church 
or  Dissenting,  choose  to  start  and  maintain  schools  in 
which  their  several  tenets  are  to  be  taught,  that  is 
their  affair.  They  pay  the  piper,  and  they  may  call 
the  tune.  But  schools  established  and  maintained  by 
the  community  depart  from  their  proper  functions 
when  they  train  "  either  hands  for  factories  or  con- 
gregations for  churches."1  They  are  to  hold  on 
brief  for  any  sect.  The  ethics  which  they  teach  must 
have  relation  to  life,  and  therefore  must  be  neither 
technical  nor  speculative.  Theology  is  both,  and 
cannot  be  otherwise.  Moreover,  where  order  is  pres- 
ent, it  imports  confusion;  it,  and  it  alone,  is  the 
apple  of  discord,  and  its  dogmas,  on  many  of  which 
no  two  sects  are  agreed,  bring  "  not  peace,  but  a 
sword."  The  teaching  of  the  ascertained  facts  of 
history,  astronomy,  geology,  and  other  branches  of 
science ;  the  inculcation  of  the  duties  of  cleanliness 
and  temperance  ;  of  self-respect  and  self-restraint ;  of 
consideration  for  others  ;  of  kindness  to  animals  ;  and 
of  honesty  and  truthfulness  in  all  the  relations  of  life 
— all  which,  enforced  by  example  and  illustration,  can 
be  brightly  conveyed, — these  run  smoothly  enough 
and  arouse  no  bitterness.  It  is  over  the  disputable 
'I- 35'- 


38  HUXLEY 

creed  and  dogma;  over  the  unproven — nay,  as  the 
well-informed  among  clergy  and  laity  know,  the  dis- 
proved— that  the  precious  time  of  youthhood  is 
wasted,  and  the  battle  for  capture  of  the  schools  is 
waged.  "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  And 
if  the  moral  tone  of  the  generation  which  has  been 
brought  up  on  the  creeds  and  the  catechism  satisfies 
the  teachers  as  to  the  practical  influence  of  these  on 
the  lives  of  the  taught,  it  is  clear  that  a  low  standard 
contents  them. 

Knowing  Huxley's  antagonistic  attitude  towards 
orthodox  beliefs,  both  cleric  and  secularist  were  be- 
wildered when  the  "  great  Agnostic,"  as  the  Spectator 
called  him,  pronounced  himself  in  favour  of  the  use 
of  the  Bible  in  Board  Schools.  That  his  decision  was 
ruled  by  the  highest  motives  va  sans  dire,  but,  as  he 
came  to  see,  it  was  none  the  less  deplorable.  On 
the  eve  of  the  election  he  explained  his  position  as 
follows : — 

When  the  great  mass  of  the  English  people  declare 
that  they  want  to  have  the  children  in  the  elementary 
schools  taught  the  Bible,  and  when  it  was  plain  from 
the  terms  of  the  Act  that  it  was  intended  that  such 
Bible-reading  should  be  permitted,  unless  good  cause 
for  prohibiting  it  could  be  shown,  I  do  not  see  what 
reason  there  is  for  opposing  that  wish.  Certainly,  I, 
individually,  could  with  no  shadow  of  consistency 
oppose  the  teaching  of  the  children  of  other  people 
that  which  my  own  children  are  taught  to  do.  And 


THE    MAN  39 

even  if  the  reading  of  the  Bible  were  not,  as  I  think 
it  is,  consonant  with  political  reason  and  justice,  and 
with  a  desire  to  act  in  the  spirit  of  the  education 
measure,  I  am  disposed  to  think  it  might  still  be  well 
to  read  that  book  in  the  elementary  schools. 

I  have  always  been  strongly  in  favor  of  secular 
education,  in  the  sense  of  education  without  the- 
ology ;  but  I  must  confess  I  have  been  no  less 
seriously  perplexed  to  know  by  what  practical  meas- 
ures the  religious  feeling,  which  is  the  essential  basis 
of  conduct,  was  to  be  kept  up,  in  the  present  utterly 
chaotic  state  of  opinion,  without  the  use  of  the  Bible. 
The  Pagan  moralists  lack  life  and  colour,  and  even 
the  noble  Stoic,  Marcus  Aurelius,  is  too  high  and  re- 
fined for  an  ordinary  child.  Take  the  Bible  as  a 
whole :  make  the  severest  deductions  which  fair 
criticism  can  dictate  for  shortcomings  and  positive 
errors ;  eliminate,  as  a  sensible  lay-teacher  would  do, 
if  left  to  himself,  all  that  it  is  not  desirable  for  chil- 
dren to  occupy  themselves  with  ;  and  there  still  re- 
mains in  this  old  literature  a  vast  residuum  of  moral 
beauty  and  grandeur.  And  then  consider  the  great 
historical  fact  that,  for  three  centuries,  this  book  has 
been  woven  into  the  life  of  all  that  is  best  and  noblest 
in  English  history ;  that  it  has  become  the  national 
epic  of  Britain,  and  is  as  familiar  to  noble  and  simple, 
from  John-o'-Groat's  House  to  Land's  End,  as  Dante 
and  Tasso  once  were  to  the  Italians ;  that  it  is  written 
in  the  noblest  and  purest  English,  and  abounds  in  ex- 
quisite beauties  of  mere  literary  form  ;  and,  finally, 
that  it  forbids  the  veriest  hind  who  never  left  his  vil- 
lage to  be  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  other  coun- 
tries and  other  civilisations,  and  of  a  great  past, 
stretching  back  to  the  furthest  limits  of  the  oldest 
nations  in  the  world.  By  the  study  of  what  other 
book  could  children  be  so  much  humanised  and  made 
to  feel  that  each  figure  in  that  vast  historical  proces- 


4O  HUXLEY 

sion  fills,  like  themselves,  but  a  momentary  space  in 
the  interval  between  two  eternities  ;  and  earns  the 
blessings  or  the  curses  of  all  time,  according  to  its 
effort  to  do  good  and  hate  evil,  even  as  they  also  are 
earning  their  payment  for  their  work  ? 

On  the  whole,  then,  I  am  in  favour  of  reading  the 
Bible,  with  such  grammatical,  geographical,  and  his- 
torical explanations  by  a  lay-teacher  as  may  be  need- 
ful, with  rigid  exclusion  of  any  further  theological 
teaching  than  that  contained  in  the  Bible  itself.  And 
in  stating  what  this  is,  the  teacher  would  do  well  not 
to  go  beyond  the  precise  words  of  the  Bible ;  for  if 
he  does,  he  will,  in  the  first  place,  undertake  a  task 
beyond  his  strength,  seeing  that  all  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  sects  have  been  at  work  upon  that  subject 
for  more  than  two  thousand  years,  and  have  not  yet 
arrived,  and  are  not  in  the  least  likely  to  arrive,  at  an 
agreement ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  he  will  certainly 
begin  to  teach  something  distinctively  denominational, 
and  thereby  come  into  violent  collision  with  the  Act 
of  Parliament.1 

As  is  well  known,  the  so-called  Cowper-Temple 
clause  in  the  Act,  which  is  itself  an  unsatisfactory 
compromise,  prescribes  that  u  no  religious  catechism 
or  religious  formulary  which  is  distinctive  of  any 
particular  denomination  shall  be  taught  in  the 
school";  and  Huxley  believed  that,  in  the  words  of 
W.  E.  Forster,  no  attempt  would  be  made  to  cram 
into  the  children's  "  poor  little  minds  theological 
dogmas  which  their  tender  age  prevents  them  from 
understanding."  *  He  mistrusted  the  clergy  ;  but  he 
»  Coll.  Essays,  iii.  pp.  397~399-  '  I.  344- 


THE    MAN  41 

had  faith  that,  in  lay  hands,  "  the  teaching  of  that 
1  venerable  record  of  ancient  life,  miscalled  a  book,' l 
would  be  gradually  modified  into  harmony  with  com- 
mon-sense." But  in  his  belief  that  his  opponents 
would  abide  by  the  compact,  he  assumed  that  their 
standard  of  honour  and  integrity  was  not  lower  than 
his  own.  He  was  mistaken.  The  bargain  has  not 
been  kept  by  the  clerical  party,  and  attempt  after  at- 
tempt has  been,  and  is  being,  made  to  reduce  the 
Cowper-Temple  clause  to  a  nullity.  Theological 
bias,  or  fear  of  retarded  promotion,  have  made  many 
of  the  teachers  puppets  in  the  hands  of  the  parsons. 
The  Bible  is  not  interpreted,  as  Jowett  said  it  should 
be,  "  like  any  other  book,"  and  this  to  the  grievous 
impairment  of  its  value,  since  appreciation  of  it  is 
deepened  in  the  degree  that  it  is  freed  from  the 
shackles  of  theories  of  inspiration.  Its  miscellaneous 
contents,  many  of  them  of  uncertain  authorship  and 
of  disputed  meaning,  are  presented  as  constituting  one 
harmonious  supernatural  document;  its  myths  are  still 
taught  as  history ;  and  the  Ten  Commandments  are 
put  on  the  same  high  ethical  plane  as  the  Beatitudes. 
Not  very  long  before  his  death  Huxley  was  asked 
to  take  part  in  opposing  the  tactics  known  as  "  Riley- 
ism."  To  this  he  replied  : — 

I   feel  very  strongly  about  the   attempt  to  capture 
.'II.  123. 


42  HUXLEY 

elementary  education  on  the  part  of  the  orthodox 
sects,  in  spite  of  the  clear  pledges  given  by  Forster, 
and  the  understanding  arrived  at  by  the  first  School 
Board.  Unfortunately,  I  am  entangled  in  several  un- 
dertakings, which  I  did  not  bargain  for,  and  could  not 
refuse,  and  which  will  occupy  all  my  scanty  working 
powers  for  some  months  to  come.  So  I  must  really 
keep  out  of  the  melee.  Indeed,  I  am  not  sure  but  that 
the  best  policy  is  to  let  these  Christian  pagans  have 
their  way.  The  axe  is  laid  to  the  root  of  the  tree, 
and  when  it  falls  they  will  be  crushed  the  more 
effectually  for  their  short  success.1 

While  "ecclesiastically-minded  persons,"  not  content 
with  absorbing  one  entire  day  in  the  week,  and  some 
portion  of  other  days,  clamoured  for  more,  Huxley 
retorted  by  asking  them  to  surrender  a  portion  of  the 
Sunday 

for  the  purpose  of  instructing  those  who  have  no 
other  leisure  in  a  knowledge  of  the  phenomena  of 
Nature,  and  of  man's  relation  to  Nature.  I  should 
like  to  see  a  scientific  Sunday-school  in  every  parish, 
not  for  the  purpose  of  superseding  any  existing  means 
of  teaching  the  people  the  things  that  are  for  their 
good,  but  side  by  side  with  them.  I  cannot  but  think 
that  there  is  room  for  all  of  us  to  work  in  helping  to 
bridge  over  the  great  abyss  of  ignorance  which  lies  at 
our  feet.2 

»  Westminster  Gazette,  1st  July,  1895 ;  and  see  I.  343  (note). 
In  his  Bible  in  School,  p.  12,  Mr.  Allanson  Picton  says  that  shortly 
before  his  death  Huxley  expressed  regret  that  he  had  not  voted 
with  Mr.  Picton  for  the  exclusion  of  the  Bible  from  elementary 
schools. 

*  Lay  Sermons,  p.  6l. 


THE    MAN  43 

As  late  as  1893  ne  planned-out  a  series  of  working 
men's  lectures  on  the  Bible,  "in  which  he  should 
present  to  the  unlearned  the  results  of  scientific  study 
of  the  documents,  and  do  for  theology  what  he  had 
done  for  zoology  thirty  years  before  " ;  and  although 
this  scheme,  the  outline  of  which  Mr.  Leonard 
Huxley  copies  from  his  father's  note-book,  was  never 
carried  out,  "  it  was  constantly  before  Huxley's  mind 
during  the  two  years  left  to  him."  l  Before  leaving 
the  subject  of  his  general  influence  as  an  educational 
reformer,  it  should  be  noted  that  he  worked  with  an 
apostolic  fervour  to  improve  the  quality  of  the 
teachers  as  the  only  security  for  thorough  education 
of  the  taught.  He  established  regular  classes  for  the 
training  of  "scientific  missionaries,"2  as  he  described 
them ;  pressed  his  views  on  technical  education  on  the 
City  guilds  and  other  influential  bodies,  and  kept  before 
his  students,  as  the  mark  of  their  "high  calling," 

the  cultivation  of  that  enthusiasm  for  truth,  that 
fanaticism  of  veracity  which  is  a  greater  possession 
than  much  learning,  a  nobler  gift  than  the  power  of 
increasing  knowledge;  by  so  much  greater  than  these 
as  the  moral  nature  of  man  is  greater  than  the  intel- 
lectual.3 

Owing  to  a  serious  breakdown  in  health,  Huxley 
was  compelled,  after  fourteen  months'  service  on  the 
School     Board,    to    resign    his    membership.      "A 
1 II.  345.  2  I.  377.  3  Coll.  Essays,  iii.  p.  205. 


wealthy  friend  wrote  to  him  in  the  most  honourable 
and  delicate  terms,  begging  him,  on  public  grounds, 
to  accept  ^400  a-year  to  enable  him  to  continue  his 
work  on  the  Board.  He  refused  the  offer  as  simply 
and  straightforwardly  as  it  was  made;  his  means, 
though  not  large,  were  sufficient  for  his  present 
needs."1  Some,  who  had  no  personal  knowledge  of 
him,  thought  that  his  desire  to  secure  a  seat  on  the 
School  Board  indicated  an  intention  to  enter  Parlia- 
ment. But  he  had  neither  taste  nor  ambition  for 
politics. 

At  a  Royal  Society  dinner  in  1892,  Mr.  Shaw 
Lefevre  expressed  his  regret  that  Huxley's  abilities 
had  never  been  placed  at  the  service  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  In  his  reply,  reminiscences  of  youth  and 
of  controversies  in  recent  years  found  a  place.  He  told 
the  company  that,  when  he  was  a  very  young  man,  a 
lawyer  in  good  practice,  believing  that  he  saw  in  him 
qualities  that  would  ensure  success  at  the  bar,  offered 
to  advance  him  an  income  for  a  certain  number  of 
years  until  he  could  repay  the  amount  from  the  fees 
which  he  was  sure  to  earn.  He  declined,  because,  as 
he  dryly  said, 

so  far  as  I  understand  myself,  my  faculties  are  so 
entirely  confined  to  the  discovery  of  truth,  that  I  have 
no  sort  of  power  of  obscuring  it. 

'I-  353- 


THE    MAN  45 

In  1870,  Huxley's  defense  of  Dr.  Brown-Sequard 
at  the  Liverpool  meeting  of  the  British  Association 
brought  him  into  collision  with  the  opponents  of 
vivisection,  and  the  battle  went  on,  in  intermittent 
fashion,  for  some  seven  years.  Experiments  had  been 
carried  on,  chiefly  in  France,  without  regard  to  animal 
suffering,-  and  also  for  the  wholly  needless  purpose  of 
further  demonstrating  well-known  facts  in  physiology 
and  pathology.  Hence  an  agitation  which,  within 
limits,  commanded  the  sympathy  of  all  humanely 
minded  folk,  and  the  appointment  of  a  committee 
by  the  Association  to  consider  what  steps  should  be 
taken  to  reduce  to  its  minimum  the  suffering  entailed 
by  legitimate  inquiry.  The  committee  recommended 
that  there  should  be  no  experiments  without  the  use 
of  anaesthetics ;  or  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating 
truths  already  known ;  or  for  practice  in  manual 
dexterity ;  and  these  provisions,  with  others  of  undue 
stringency,  were  embodied  in  "  An  Act  to  amend  the 
law  relating  to  Cruelty  to  Animals,"  passed  in  1876. 
Huxley  held  that  "  the  wanton  infliction  of  pain  on 
man  or  beast  is  a  crime,"  l  and  that  the  vivisectionist 
is  justified  only  when  his  aim  is  the  discovery  of  the 
origin  and  nature  of  disease  with  a  view  to  the 
alleviation  or  removal  of  the  suffering  which  it 
causes.  In  this  he  has  rendered  incalculable  service 
•  I.  436. 


46  HUXLEY 

to  mankind,  and  also  to  the  lower  animals,  since 
"  not  a  single  one  of  all  the  great  truths  of  modern 
physiology  has  been  established  otherwise  than  by  ex- 
periments on  living  things."  ! 

In  defending  a  practice  which  by  one  successful 
experiment  on  an  animal  rendered  insensible  to  pain 
might  save  numberless  lives  from  some  fell  disease, 
Huxley  had  to  meet  a  frontal  attack,  whose  chief 
weapon,  wielded  by  fanaticism,  was  misrepresentation 
and  slander.  He  was  charged  by  one  of  the  so- 
called  "  religious "  papers  with  advocating  the 
practice  of  vivisection  before  children,  and  the  charge 
was  repeated  in  the  House  of  Lords.  It  was  nec- 
essary to  publicly  deny  what  had  been  thus  publicly 
asserted;  he  quoted  chapter  and  verse  from  his 
Elementary  Physiology  in  refutation,  adding  that 
"  personally  and  constitutionally  "  the  performance  of 
experiments  upon  living  and  conscious  animals  was 
"  so  extremely  disagreeable  "  to  himself  that  he  had 
"  never  followed  any  line  of  investigation  in  which 
such  experiments  were  required."  But  he  said  that, 
as  a  teacher  of  physiology,  he  could  not 

consent  to  be  prohibited  from  showing  the  circulation 
in  a  frog's  foot,  because  the  frog  is  made  slightly  un- 
comfortable by  being  tied  up  for  that  purpose;  nor 
from  showing  the  fundamental  properties  of  nerves, 

'I-  434. 


THE     MAN  47 

because  extirpating  the  brain  of  the  same  animal 
inflicts  one-thousandth  part  of  the  prolonged  suffering 
which  it  undergoes  when  it  makes  its  natural  exit 
from  the  world  by  being  slowly  forced  down  the 
throat  of  a  duck,  and  crushed  and  asphyxiated  in  that 
creature's  stomach. l 

He  had  small  stock  of  patience  for  the  "senti- 
mental hypocrisy  "  which  evidenced  its  lack  of  sin- 
cerity in  not  abstaining  from  eating  the  flesh  of 
creatures  put  to  death  in  lingering  torture,  both  in  the 
slaughter-house  and  on  the  moors,  or  in  destroying 
rats,  mice,  and  other  "  sentient  vermin  "  ;  and  when 
the  Act  of  1876,  on  the  Royal  Commission  concern- 
ing which  he  was  a  member,  was  passed,  he  showed 
how  it  exemplified  the  old  adage  that  "one  man  may 
steal  a  horse  while  the  other  may  not  look  over  the 
hedge." 

While,  as  a  member  of  a  late  Royal  Commission,  I 
did  my  best  to  prevent  the  infliction  of  needless  pain 
for  any  purpose,  I  think  it  is  my  duty  to  take  this 
opportunity  of  expressing  my  regret  at  a  condition 
of  the  law  which  permits  a  boy  to  troll  for  pike  or  set 
lines  with  live-frog  bait  for  idle  amusement,  and  at 
the  same  time  lays  the  teacher  of  that  boy  open  to 
the  penalty  of  fine  and  imprisonment  if  he  uses  the 
same  animal  for  the  purpose  of  exhibiting  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  and  instructive  of  physiological  spec- 
tacles— the  circulation  in  the  web  of  the  foot. 

So  it  comes  about  that  in  this  year  of  grace  1877, 
two  persons  may  be  charged  with  cruelty  to  animals. 

»I.  432- 


4»  HUXLEY 

One  has  impaled  a  frog,  and  suffered  the  creature  to 
writhe  about  in  that  condition  for  hours ;  the  other 
has  pained  the  animal  no  more  than  one  of  us  would 
be  pained  by  tying  strings  round  his  fingers  and  keep- 
ing him  in  the  position  of  a  hydropathic  patient. 
The  first  offender  says,  "  I  did  it  because  I  find  fish- 
ing very  amusing " ;  and  the  magistrate  bids  him 
depart  in  peace,  nay,  probably  wishes  him  good  sport. 
The  second  pleads,  "  I  wanted  to  impress  a  scientific 
truth  with  a  distinctness  attainable  in  no  other  way 
on  the  minds  of  my  scholars,"  and  the  magistrate 
fines  him  five  pounds. l 

From  1870  onward,  the  time  which  Huxley  had 
been  able  to  snatch  from  public  and  private  demands 
for  biological  research  grew  less  and  less.  "  For  eight 
years  he  was  continuously  on  one  Royal  Commission 
after  another.  His  administrative  work  on  learned 
societies  continued  to  increase;  in  1869-70  he  held 
the  presidency  of  the  Ethnological  Society  (which, 
chiefly  by  his  efforts,  became  merged  in  the  Anthro- 
pological Institute) ;  he  was  elected  president  of  the 
Geological  Society  in  1872;  and  for  nearly  ten  years, 
from  1871  to  1880,  he  was  Secretary  of  the  Royal 
Society,  an  office  which  occupied  no  small  portion  of 
his  time  and  thought."  2  Little  wonder,  therefore, 
that  his  dyspepsia  became  chronic,  compelling  a 
lengthy  absence,  which,  through  the  generosity  of 
friend^,  was  spent  along  the  Mediterranean  seaboard 
as  far  as  Egypt. 3  Returning  thence  bronzed  and 

1  Coll.  Essays,  iii.  pp.  301,  302.  » I.  324.  •  I.  367. 


THE    MAN  49 

bearded,  but  only  patched  up,  he  perforce  took  life  a 
little  easier.  In  1874  he  followed-up  Tyndall's 
famous  Presidential  Address  at  the  Belfast  meeting  of 
the  British  Association  with  a  lecture  on  "  Animal 
Automatism,"  which  underwent  the  usual  misin- 
terpretation attending  any  presentment  of  psychical 
activity  in  mechanical  terms.  In  1870,  when  lectur- 
ing before  the  Cambridge  Young  Men's  Christian 
Society,  Huxley  had  made  the  life  and  philosophy  of 
Descartes  the  text  of  insistence  on  the  duty  of  doubt 
as  a  condition  of  reaching  certainty  ;  and  now,  before 
a  presumably  more  scientific  audience,  he  showed 
what  significant  contributions  that  master-mind  had 
made  to  our  knowledge  of  the  physiology  of  the 
nervous  system.  The  resulting  intrusion  of  the  biolo- 
gist into  the  domain  of  metaphysics,  which  theology 
had  so  long  annexed,  aroused  the  old  antagonism,  and 
Huxley  had  again  to  combat  the  passion  and  preju- 
dice which  his  famous  "lay  sermon,"  on  "The 
Physical  Basis  of  Life,"  had  aroused  in  Edinburgh  in 
1868. 

The  summer  of  1875  found  him  in  that  city  lec- 
turing on  Natural  History  on  behalf  of  Sir  (then  Pro- 
fessor) Wyville  Thomson,  who  was  absent  on  the 
Challenger  expedition.  In  a  letter  which  Huxley 
received  from  Thomson  in  August,  doubts  were 
thrown  on  Huxley's  theory  of  the  organic  character 


5O  HUXLEY 

of  a  viscid,  granular  substance  which  had  been 
dredged  from  the  bottom  of  the  Atlantic  in  1868.  He 
had  expressed  the  opinion  that  this  deposit  was  a 
living  form  of  very  low  type,  and  in  this  faith,  and  as 
a  compliment  to  Haeckel,  had  named  it  Bathybius 
Haeckelii.1  But  it  turned  out  that  what  seemed  to  be- 
long to  the  group  of  simplest  living  things  was  only  a 
precipitate,  probably  due  to  its  having  been  preserved 
in  spirit.2  There  was  an  impression,  confined,  how- 
ever, to  superficial  critics,  that  Huxley  had  regarded 
Bathybius  as  a  hitherto  missing  link  between  the 
living  and  the  not-living,  and  they  rejoiced  doubly ; 
first,  in  his  discomfiture  as  possibly  weakening  his 
authority,  and  next,  in  the  blow  dealt,  as  they  hoped, 
to  the  theory  of  the  unity  of  the  cosmos.  But,  as  he 
told  them,  when  admitting  the  error, 

that  which  interested  me  in  the  matter  was  the 
apparent  analogy  of  Bathybius  with  other  well-known 
forms  of  lower  life.  .  .  .  Speculative  hopes  and 
fears  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter;  and  if 
Bathybius  were  brought  up  alive  from  the  bottom 
of  the  Atlantic  to-morrow,  the  fact  would  not  have 
the  slightest  bearing,  that  I  can  discern,  upon  Mr. 
Darwin's  speculations,  or  upon  any  of  the  disputed 
problems  of  biology.  It  would  merely  be  one  ele- 
mentary organism  the  more  added  to  the  thousands 
already  known.3 

1  Scientific  Memoirs,   Hi.  p.  337.  *  I.  295,  446;  II.  5,  160. 

»  ColL  Essays,  v.  p.  154. 


THE    MAN  51 

Misrepresentation,  whose  roots  were  in  animus 
rather  than  in  ignorance,  went  on,  and  as  late  as  1890 
Mr.  Mallock  revived  the  "  Bathybius  myth  "  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  upon  which  Huxley  commented, 
with  warrantable  irritation  : — 

Bathybius  is  far  too  convenient  a  stick  to  beat  this 
dog  with  to  be  ever  given  up,  however  many  lies  may 
be  needful  to  make  the  weapon  effectual.  I  told  the 
whole  story  in  my  reply  to  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  but 
of  course  the  pack  give  tongue  just  as  loudly  as  ever. 
Clerically-minded  people  cannot  be  accurate,  even  the 
liberals.1 

In  1876  he  paid  a  long-cherished  visit  to  America. 
The  newspapers,  confusing  him  with  Tyndall,  recently 
married  to  a  daughter  of  the  aristocratic  house  of 
Hamilton,  reported  that  he  was  bringing  with  him  his 
"  titled  bride,"  who,  needless  to  say,  had  long  been 
the  joyful  mother  of  many  children.  The  trip  inter- 
ested and  invigorated  him  ;  his  progress  from  place  to 
place  was  almost  royal.  But  that  with  which  his 
hosts  thought  to  impress  him  most  impressed  him 
least.  Their  energy  won  his  admiration ;  watching 
the  mass  of  moving  craft  in  New  York  harbour,  he 
said,  "  If  I  were  not  a  man,  I  think  I  should  like  to 
be  a  tug."  But,  in  his  lecture  before  the  Johns  Hop- 
kins University  at  Baltimore,  he  said  : 
i  II.  160. 


52  HUXLEY 

I  am  not  in  the  slightest  degree  impressed  by  your 
bigness  or  your  material  resources,  as  such.  Size  is 
not  grandeur ;  territory  does  not  make  a  nation.  The 
great  issue,  about  which  hangs  a  true  sublimity,  and 
the  terror  of  overhanging  fate,  is — "What  are  you 
going  to  do  with  all  these  things  ?  "  .  .  .  The 
one  condition  of  success,  your  sole  safeguard,  is  the 
moral  worth  and  intellectual  clearness  of  the  indi- 
vidual citizen. 

He  was  deeply  interested  in  the  fossil  remains  in 
the  Yale  College  museum  which  Professor  Marsh  had 
unearthed  from  the  Tertiary  beds  of  the  Far  West. 
They  demonstrated  what  was  new  to  him — the  evolu- 
tion of  the  horse  on  the  American  continent,  "  and 
for  the  first  time  indicated  the  direct  line  of  descent 
of  an  existing  animal."  The  fascinating  story  of  the 
series  of  discoveries,  linking  the  one-toed  genus  Equus 
of  to-day  with  a  five-toed  ancestor  common  to  it  and 
other  hoofed  quadrupeds,  is  told,  with  the  added 
charm  which  Huxley's  power  of  clear  exposition  im- 
parts, in  his  American  Addresses.  The  subject  will 
have  fuller  treatment  in  the  next  chapter. 

In  the  following  six  years  Huxley  published  as 
many  books,  among  which,  and  of  enduring  value, 
were  his  monographs  on  the  anatomy  and  physiology 
of  the  Crayfish  and  on  the  philosophy  of  Hume, — 
subjects  seemingly  diverse  enough,  but  alike  in  the 
problems  which  they  suggest  concerning  Nature  as 
"nowhere  inaccessible,  and  everywhere  unfathom- 


THE    MAN  53 

able."1  In  1881,  concurrently  with  the  absorption 
of  the  School  of  Mines  in  what  was  then  called  the 
Normal  School,  Huxley  became  Professor  of  Biology 
and  Dean  of  the  Royal  College  of  Science,  claiming 
thereby,  as  he  jocosely  reminded  his  friends,  the  title 
of  "  The  Very  Reverend  " ;  and  in  the  same  year  he 
accepted  an  Inspectorship  of  Fisheries,  which  had  the 
advantage  of  taking  him  into  the  fresh  air. 

In  1883  he  received  the  highest  honour  which  his 
fellow-savants  could  bestow  in  being  elected  President 
of  the  Royal  Society.  But  the  dignity,  which  he  ac- 
cepted with  reluctance,  was,  on  account  of  bad  health, 
surrendered  in  November,  1885.  He  had  become 
more  and  more  the  invalid ;  holidays  had  given  him 
only  fillips,  and  the  little  store  of  energy  which  they 
added  was  quickly  dissipated ;  deafness  troubled  him, 
bringing  its  dreaded  isolation,  and  in  the  previous 
May,  having  reached  his  sixtieth  year,  an  age  at  which 
he  had  often  jocosely  said  that  men  of  science  should 
be  pole-axed,  lest  through  ossification  of  mind  they 
become  arresters  of  progress,  he  resigned  all  his  ap- 
pointments, paid  and  unpaid,  and  retired  upon  a  pen- 
sion of  ;£i,2OO  a-year,  which,  shortly  afterwards,  was 
supplemented  by  a  Civil  List  pension  of  ^300  a-year. 

But  resignation  of  offices  meant  not  retirement 
from  work.  During  the  ten  years  of  life  that  re- 
1  The  Crayfish,  p.  3. 


54  HUXLEY 

mained  to  him  he  was  more  in  evidence  than  ever. 
He  had  never  permitted  his  official  position  to  curb 
his  freedom  of  speech,  and  now  that  his  time  was  all 
his  own,  that  freedom  could  have  larger  play.  In  a 
retrospect  of  life,  summing-up  the  part  he  had  played 
in  what  he  called  the  "  New  Reformation,"  he  said 
that  the  objects  which  he  had  pursued  were  "  briefly 
these": 

To  promote  the  increase  of  natural  knowledge  and 
to  forward  the  application  of  scientific  methods  of 
investigation  to  all  the  problems  of  life  to  the  best  of 
my  ability,  in  the  conviction  which  has  grown  with 
my  growth  and  strengthened  with  my  strength,  that 
there  is  no  alleviation  for  the  sufferings  of  mankind 
except  veracity  of  thought  and  of  action,  and  the 
resolute  facing  of  the  world  as  it  is,  when  the  gar- 
ment of  make-belief  by  which  pious  hands  have 
hidden  its  uglier  features  is  stripped  off.  It  is  with 
this  intent  that  I  have  subordinated  any  reasonable  or 
unreasonable  ambition  for  scientific  fame  which  I  may 
have  permitted  myself  to  entertain  to  other  ends  :  to 
the  popularisation  of  science  ;  to  the  development  and 
organisation  of  scientific  education  ;  to  the  endless 
series  of  battles  and  skirmishes  over  evolution  ;  and 
to  untiring  opposition  to  that  ecclesiastical  spirit,  that 
clericalism  which  in  England,  and  everywhere  else, 
and  to  whatever  denomination  it  may  belong,  is  the 
deadly  enemy  of  science.1 

The  "  battles  and  skirmishes  over  evolution  "  were 
now  resolved  by  Huxley  into  a  well-conceived  plan  of 
campaign   in  which  all   the  forces  that  come  of  the 
1  Coll.  Essays,  i.  p.  17. 


TH-E    MAN  55 

widest  knowledge  and  most  varied  experience  were  to 
be  used  in  applying  the  doctrine  of  evolution  to  the 
demolition  of  beliefs  which,  in  the  degree  that  they 
are  untrue,  must  be  mischievous.  But  he  was  not 
merely  critical  and  destructive  :  he  razed  only  that  he 
or  others  might  raise.  In  the  Prologue  to  his  Essays 
on  Controverted  Questions  he  says  that  — 

The  present  incarnation  of  the  spirit  of  the  Renas- 
cence differs  from  its  predecessor  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  in  that  it  builds  up,  as  well  as  pulls  down. 
That  of  which  it  has  laid  the  foundation,  of  which  it 
is  already  raising  the  superstructure,  is  the  doctrine  of 
Evolution,  ...  a  doctrine  which  is  no  specula- 
tion, but  a  generalisation  of  certain  facts  which  may 
be  observed  by  any  one  who  will  take  the  necessary 
trouble.1 

Hence  the  inclusion  therein  of  all  that  is  of  deepest 
import  to  man.  Hence  the  inevitable,  however  tardy, 
supersession  of  theology  as  a  body  of  speculative 
dogma  by  a  religion  having  correspondence  with  the 
constitution  and  needs  of  human  nature ;  and  the 
gradual  displacement  of  ethics  resting  on  ancient  and 
shifting  codes  and  conventions  by  ethics  founded  on 
what,  after  ages  of  sore  testing,  man  has  proven  to  be 
best  for  the  welfare  of  society,  and,  therefore,  as  a 
social  being,  for  himself. 

Huxley's  health,  however,  remained  so  indifferent 
that  he  needed  stimulus  to  work.     It  came  in  unusual 
1  Coll.  Essays,  v.  pp.  41,  42. 


56  HUXLEY 

form  from  an  article  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  of 
November,  1885,  in  which  Mr.  Gladstone  made  a  re- 
view of  Dr.  Reville's  Prolegomena  to  the  History  of 
Religions  the  vehicle  of  obsolete  arguments  in  support 
of  harmony  between  the  Mosaic  cosmogony  and  the 
theory  of  organic  evolution.  Re-stated  by  a  man 
whose  high  authority  in  matters  political  had  led 
many  (for  the  logical  faculty  is,  as  yet,  in  the  em- 
bryonic stage  in  the  majority  of  minds)  to  accept  him 
as  an  authority  upon  everything  else,  these  arguments, 
refuted,  as  they  had  been,  over  and  over  again,  had  to 
be  dealt  with  once  more. '  Huxley  was  the  man  for 
the  task.  The  article,  "  he  used  humorously  to  say, 
so  stirred  his  bile  as  to  set  his  liver  right  at  once ; " 
indeed,  stagnation  making  him  "unendurable  to  him- 
self and  everybody  else,"  he  said  that  he  was  thankful 
to  "  Providence "  for  specially  devolving  on  Glad- 
stone, Gore,  &  Co.  the  function  of  keeping  " c  'ome 
'appy  '  for  him." 2 

The  controversies  thus  involved,  together  with 
essays  on  philosophical  and  social  questions,  filled  the 
time  between  long  intervals  of  broken  health,  and  of 
sojourns  on  Alpine  summits.  Arolla  made  him  feel 
young  again : 

"  Balm  floating  on  thy  mountain  air 

And  healing  sights  to  see ;  " 
1 II.  425.  •  II.  269. 


THE    MAN  57 

but,  eager  to  return  to  active  life,  he  was  "  glad  to  see 
one's  own  dear  native  mud  again.  There  is  no 
foreign  mud  to  come  near  it."  l  London,  however, 
with  its  social  beguilements,  had  long  ceased  to  at- 
tract him,  and  the  old  home  in  Marlborough  Place 
(charged  for  many  a  guest  with  delightful  memories 
of  Sunday  evenings,  with  their  conversation  grave  and 
gay),  where  he  had  lived  since  1872,  was  given  up, 
and  Eastbourne  fixed  upon.  There,  through  a  timely 
legacy,  he  was  able  to  build  himself  a  house  which  he 
called  Hodeslea,  the  ancestral  form  of  the  family 
name.  There  he  lived  from  1890  until  his  death, 
dividing  his  time  between  his  books,  his  garden,  and 
his  grandchildren.  He  left  it  only  at  short  and  rare 
intervals  to  discharge  the  remnants  of  duties  devolv- 
ing upon  him  as  honorary  Dean  of  the  Royal  College 
of  Science  and  as  a  Trustee  of  the  British  Museum. 
One  notable  journey  was  made  in  1892.  Fifteen 
years  before  then,  Lord  Salisbury  had  invited  Hux- 
ley's opinion  as  to  a  "  formal  recognition  of  dis- 
tinguished services  in  science,  literature,  and  art  by 
the  granting  of  titles."  Against  this  Huxley  ex- 
pressed himself  strongly.2  But  when  the  dignity  of 
a  Privy  Councillorship  was  offered  him,  he  accepted 
it,  because,  as  he  wrote  to  Sir  J.  Donnelly  — 

I  have  always  been  dead  against  orders  of  merit  and 
1II.  103.  8L  359. 


58  HUXLEY 

the  like,  but  I  think  that  men  of  letters  and  science 
who  have  been  of  use  to  the  nation  (Lord  knows  if  I 
have)  may  fairly  be  ranked  among  its  nominal  or 
actual  councillors. l 

So,  in  August,  1892,  he  went  to  kiss  hands  at  Os- 
borne,  remembering,  as  he  passed  the  old  Victory, 
"  that  six-and-forty  years  ago  he  went  up  her  side  to 
report  himself  on  appointment  as  a  poor  devil  of  an 
assistant-surgeon."  In  the  following  October  he  was 
present  at  Tennyson's  funeral,  and  but  for  a  biting 
wind,  would  have  been  at  Owen's  in  the  following 
December.  His  "opinion  of  the  man's  character" 
never  altered ;  but  death  "  ends  all  quarrels,"  and  at 
the  request  of  Owen's  grandson  and  biographer  he 
contributed  a  chapter  on  "  Owen's  Place  in  Anatom- 
ical Science,"  which  enabled  him  to  pay  honest  tribute 
to  the  value  and  importance  of  Owen's  work  in  that 
branch  of  biology.  Friends  were  falling  out  of  the 
ranks :  in  the  autumn  of  1893  Jowett,  Tyndall,  and 
Sir  Andrew  Clark  passed  away,  bringing  home  the 
thought  that  "  one  should  always  be  ready  to  stand  at 
attention  when  the  order  to  march  comes." 2 

Oxford  had  seen  little  of  Huxley  since  the  day  of 
his  famous  duel  with  its  bishop  in  1860.  Ten  years 
later,  Pusey  and  his  party  had  prevented  the  confer- 
ring of  the  degree  of  D.C.L.  on  Owen — although  he 

» II.  323.  « II.  368. 


THE    MAN  59 

was  persona  grata  to  the  Episcopal  bench — as  well  as 
on  Froude  and  Huxley.  But,  tardily  following  the 
sister  and  other  universities,  Oxford  reversed  the  de- 
cision in  1885.  Eight  years  later,  Huxley  revisited 
the  "  home  of  lost  causes  "  to  deliver  the  Romanes 
Lecture  on  Evolution  and  Ethics.  The  occasion  may 
rank  as  historic. 

The  Sheldonian  Theatre  was  thronged  before  he 
appeared  upon  the  platform,  a  striking  presence  in  his 
D.C.L.  robes,  and  looking  very  leonine  with  his  long 
silvery  gray  hair  sweeping  back  in  one  long  wave 
from  his  forehead,  and  the  rugged  squareness  of  his 
features  tempered  by  the  benignity  of  an  old  age 
which  has  seen  much  and  overcome  much.  He  read 
the  lecture  from  a  printed  copy,  not  venturing,  as  he 
would  have  liked,  upon  the  severe  task  of  speaking  it 
from  memory,  considering  its  length  and  the  impor- 
tance of  preserving  the  exact  wording.1 

In  August,  1894,  the  temptation  offered  by  the 
meeting  of  the  British  Association  at  Oxford  to  re- 
new a  visit  was  too  strong  to  be  resisted,  if  only  for  the 
contrast  of  feelings  which  the  occasion  would  awaken. 
Huxley  might  aptly  have  applied  to  himself  the  ancient 
words  with  which  he  ended  his  lecture  On  the  Coming 
of  Age  of  the  Origin  of  Species  :  "  The  stone  which 
the  builders  rejected  the  same  is  become  the  head  of 
the  corner."  Lord  Salisbury  was  president,  and  in 
his  address,  while  admitting  that  Darwin  had,  "  as  a 
'II.  356- 


60  HUXLEY 

matter  of  fact,  disposed  of  the  doctrine  of  the  im- 
mutability of  species,"  he  raised  a  number  of  dis- 
ingenuous objections  to  the  general  theory  of  what  he 
ironically  called  the  "  comforting  word,  Evolution," 
objections  evidencing  the  " biassed  amateur"  and  the 
"representative  of  ecclesiastical  conservatism  and 
orthodoxy."  Huxley  had  consented  to  second  the 
vote  of  thanks  to  the  president,  and  although  "  the 
old  Adam,  of  course,  prompted  the  tearing  of  the  ad- 
dress to  pieces,  which  would  have  been  a  very  easy 
job,"  he  had  perforce  to  content  himself  with  "  con- 
veying criticism  in  the  shape  of  praise." l  However, 
he  dealt  with  the  "  polemical  dexterity  "  of  the  Mar- 
quis and  gave  him  "a  Roland  for  his  Oliver"  in  an 
article  on  "Past  and  Present  "in  Nature,  ist  No- 
vember, 1894.  In  that  month  the  Royal  Society  put 
its  final  seal  to  Huxley's  life-work  in  awarding  him 
the  Darwin  medal ;  and  in  his  speech  at  the  anniver- 
sary dinner  acknowledging  the  compliment,  a  speech 
whose  impressiveness  can  never  fade  from  the  mem- 
ory of  those  who  heard  it,  he  also  set  the  "  seal  to  his 
ministry  "  in  emphasising  his  belief 

that  the  views  which  were  propounded  by  Mr.  Dar- 
win thirty-five  years  ago  may  be  understood  hereafter 
as  constituting  an  epoch  in  the  intellectual  history  of 
the  human  race.  They  will  modify  the  whole  system 

'II.  379. 


THE    MAN  6 I 

of  our  thought  and  opinion,  our  most  intimate  con- 
victions. 

With  the  exception  of  a  hurried  visit  to  London 
in  January,  1895,  to  join  as  spokesman  in  a  deputation 
to  Lord  Salisbury  on  a  cause  near  his  heart,  that  of 
London  University  Reform,  he  never  left  Eastbourne 
again.  The  last  thing  which  he  wrote  was  a  criticism 
of  Mr.  Balfour's  "  quaintly-entitled "  (the  happy 
phrase  is  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen's)  Foundations  of  Belief.1 
He  had  to  deal  with  the  same  vagueness,  elusiveness, 
and  want  of  insight  into  the  position  travestied  which 
is  the  feature  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  polemics,  and  which 
make  Mr.  Balfour,  trained  as  he  is  in  the  same  at- 
mosphere of  obscuration  of  the  truth  and  of  dialec- 
tical fencing,  the  intellectual  representative  of  that 
master  of  the  art  of  mystification.  In  returning  the 
proofs  of  the  first  part  of  the  article  to  the  editor  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century,  Huxley  wrote  : — 

My  estimation  of  Balfour,  as  a  thinker,  sinks  lower 
and  lower  the  farther  I  go.  God  help  the  people 
who  think  his  book  an  important  contribution  to 
thought !  The  Gigadibsians 2  who  say  so  are  past 

1  See  infra,  p.  204. 

8 "  You  Gigadibs  who,  thirty  years  of  age, 
Believe  you  see  two  points  in  Hamlet's  soul 
Unseized  by  the  Germans  yet — which  view  you'll  print." 
— Bishop  Blougram's  Apology — BROWNING. 
(Quoted  by  Huxley,   Nineteenth  Century, 
March.  1895,  P- 


62  HUXLEY 

divine  assistance.1  .  .  .  A.  B.  is  the  incarnation 
of  Gigadibs.  I  should  call  him  Gigadibsius  Optimus 
Maximus? 

The  second  part  was  never  published ;  its  incomple- 
tion  has  curious  parallel  in  the  following  extract  from 
a  letter  written  by  Huxley  to  Tyndall  in  1854: — 

The  poor  fellow  vanished  in  the  middle  of  an  un- 
finished article,  which  has  appeared  in  the  last  West- 
minster, as  his  forlorn  Vale  !  to  the  world.  After  all, 
that  is  the  way  to  die, — better  a  thousand  times  than 
drivelling  off  into  eternity  betwixt  awake  and  asleep 
in  a  fatuous  old  age.3 

From  March  onwards  old  complications  were  ag- 
gravated by  influenza,  and  although  he  threw  this  off, 
it  left  him  weaker  for  the  struggle,  yet  hopeful  of  the 
issue.  On  the  26th  June  he  wrote  in  cheerful  tone 
to  his  old  friend  Hooker;  but  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
igth  he  passed  away,  "  the  Fates,"  as  he  had  prayed, 
leaving  him  "  clear  and  vigorous  mind  "  4  to  the  end. 

It  has  become  a  fashion  to  more  or  less  burden  a 
man's  biography  with  tributes  to  his  worth  from  his 
friends.  Such  "  appreciations,"  as  these  witnesses  to 
character  are  called,  weaken  rather  than  strengthen, 
since  their  presence  implies  their  possible  necessity. 
Of  these  credentials  Huxley  stands  in  no  need.  He 
is  his  own  witness  in  the  work  which  he  did,  and  in 

•11.400.  i II.  430.  «I.  121.  '11.361. 


THE    MAN  63 

the  spirit  which  informed  it.  Those  who  knew  him 
best  loved  him  most,  and  none  came  into  touch  with 
his  eager,  sympathetic,  breezy,  and  altogether  beauti- 
ful nature  without  receiving  an  impulse  to  higher 
aims.  Of  spotless  integrity  in  every  relation,  and 
single-minded  in  every  purpose,  he  went  on  from 
strength  to  strength,  because  each  step  made  the 
Tightness  of  the  path  which  he  had  chosen  more 
manifest.  One  "who  never  turned  his  back,  but 
marched  breast  forward " ;  unswayed  by  motives  of 
worldly  prudence ;  undeterred  by  authority  which 
could  produce  no  valid  warrant  of  its  claims ;  gov- 
erned by  "  morality  touched  by  emotion,"  and  guided 
by  reason  within  limits  which  none  have  defined  so 
well, — he  remains  alike  an  example  and  an  inspiration 
to  all  men  for  all  time. 


II 

THE    DISCOVERER 

IN  the  preface  to  the  eighth  volume  of  his  Collected 
Essays  Huxley  says  : — 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  popularisation  of 
science,  whether  by  lectures  or  by  essays,  has  its 
drawbacks.  Success  in  this  department  has  its  perils 
for  those  who  succeed.  The  "  people  who  fail  "  take 
their  revenge  by  ignoring  all  the  rest  of  a  man's  work, 
and  glibly  labelling  him  a  mere  populariser.  If  the 
falsehood  were  not  too  glaring,  they  would  say  the 
same  of  Faraday,  and  Helmholtz,  and  Kelvin. * 

They  said  it  of  Huxley.  In  a  recent  compilation 
entitled  One  Hundred  and  One  Great  Writers,  issued 
under  the  editorship  of  so  well-equipped  a  scholar  as 
Dr.  Richard  Garnett,  Huxley's  work  is  described  as 
"  that  of  the  populariser ;  the  man  who  makes  few 
original  contributions  to  science  or  thought,  but  states 
the  discoveries  of  others  better  than  they  could  have 
stated  them  themselves."  And,  doubtless,  that  is  a  very 
common  impression  about  a  man  the  titles  of  whose 
original  scientific  papers2  fill  ten  pages  of  the  appendix 

>  P.  rii. 

*  Now  collected  in  four  volumes  under  the  editorship  of  Sir 
Michael  Foster  and  Professor  E.  Kay  Lankcstcr. 
64 


THE    DISCOVERER  65 

to  his  biography. J  The  fact  is,  he  loomed  so  large 
in  the  public  eye  as  the  most  luminous  expositor  of 
the  theory  of  organic  evolution,  as  the  proclaimer  of 
its  significance,  and  as  the  protagonist  in  the  great 
revolution  which  it  has  brought  about,  that  the  im- 
portance of  his  discoveries  in  biology  is  obscured. 
And  there  is  further  explanation,  which  is  given  by 
Mr.  Chalmers  Mitchell  in  his  admirable  monograph, 
Thomas  Henry  Huxley :  a  Sketch  of  his  Life  and 
Work.  He  says  : — 

The  years  that  have  passed  since  1850  have  seen 
not  only  the  most  amazing  progress  in  our  knowledge 
of  comparative  anatomy,  but  almost  a  revolution  in 
the  methods  of  studying  it.  Huxley's  work  has  been 
incorporated  in  the  very  body  of  science.  A  large 
number  of  later  investigators  have  advanced  upon  the 
lines  he  laid  down;  and  just  as  the  superstructures  of 
a  great  building  conceal  the  foundations,  so  later 
anatomical  work,  although  it  has  only  amplified  and 
extended  Huxley's  discoveries,  has  made  them  seem 
less  striking  to  the  modern  reader.  The  present 
writer,  for  instance,  learned  all  that  he  knows  of 
anatomy  in  the  last  ten  years,  and  until  he  turned  to 
it  for  the  purpose  of  this  volume  he  had  never  re- 
ferred to  Huxley's  original  paper.  [Mr.  Chalmers 
Mitchell  is  here  speaking  of  the  Memoir  on  the 
Medusae.]  When  he  did  so,  he  found  from  beginning 
to  end  nothing  that  was  new  to  him,  nothing  that  was 
strange ;  all  the  ideas  in  the  memoir  had  passed  into 
the  currency  of  knowledge,  and  he  had  been  taught 
them  as  fundamental  facts.  It  was  only  when  he 

ill.  460-470. 


66  HUXLEY 

turned  to  the  text-books  of  anatomy  and  natural  his- 
tory current  in  Huxley's  time  that  he  was  able  to 
realise  how  the  conclusions  of  the  young  ship- 
surgeon  struck  the  President  and  Fellows  of  the  Royal 
Society  as  luminous  and  revolutionary  ideas. ' 

And  again: — 

Huxley's  work  upon  birds,  like  his  work  in  many 
other  branches  of  anatomy,  has  been  so  overlaid  by 
the  investigations  of  subsequent  zoologists  that  it  is 
easy  to  overlook  its  importance.  His  employment 
of  the  skeleton  as  the  basis  of  classification  was  suc- 
ceeded by  the  work  of  others  who  made  a  similar  use 
of  the  muscular  anatomy,  of  the  intestinal  canal,  of 
the  windpipe,  of  the  tendons  of  the  feet,  and  many 
other  structures  which  display  anatomical  modifica- 
tions in  different  birds.  .  .  .  Huxley's  anatom- 
ical work  was  essentially  living  and  stimulating,  and 
too  often  it  has  become  lost  to  sight  simply  because 
of  the  vast  superstructures  of  new  facts  to  which  it 
gave  rise.2 

The  centring  of  Huxley's  interest  in  the  apparatus 
and  functions  of  living  things  has  been  named,  as  also 
the  opportunity  for  exercise  of  this  which  his  voyage 
in  the  Rattlesnake  supplied.  The  dredge  brought 
him  strange  dwellers  of  the  deep  sea — fantastic  in 
form,  delicate  in  structure,  and  exquisite  in  colour. 
These  he  sketched  with  his  facile  pencil,  dissected, 

1  Pp-  34,35- 

»/<*.,  p.  137.  The  third,  fifth,  and  eighth  chapters  of  Mr. 
Chalmers  Mitchell's  book  are  to  be  strongly  commended  for  the 
clear  and  accurate  account  of  Huxley's  original  work  which  they 
furnish. 


THE    DISCOVERER  67 

and,  whenever  chance  offered,  compared,  giving 
special  attention  to  the  family  of  the  Medusae,  his 
memoir  on  which  laid  the  foundation-stone  of  his 
scientific  fame.  It  should  be  noted  that  that  memoir 
was  written  in  1848,  eleven  years  before  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Origin  of  Species,  because  in  determining 
the  value  of  any  scientific,  and,  especially,  of  biolog- 
ical work,  its  chronological  place  must  be  taken  into 
account.  In  science  the  Old  and  the  New  Dispensa- 
tion may  be  severally  defined  as  the  Pre-Darwinian 
and  the  Post-Darwinian,  and  perhaps  a  brief  survey 
of  what  advance  towards  knowledge  of  the  funda- 
mental unity  of  living  things  had  been  reached  during 
the  Old  Dispensation  may  make  clearer  the  bearing 
of  Huxley's  discoveries,  and  explain  why  their  signifi- 
cance was  not  apparent  even  to  himself. 

The  great  name  of  Aristotle  is  associated  with  the 
earliest  attempt  at  a  classification  of  animals.  This 
was  based,  in  the  main,  on  likenesses  of  external 
structure,  and  was  accepted,  without  fundamental 
variation,  for  the  long  period  of  eighteen  hundred 
years.  The  first  step  towards  any  important  revision 
was  taken,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  by  Ray, 
"the  father  of  modern  zoology."  In  the  eighteenth 
century  Boerhaave's  experiments  proved  that  all  liv- 
ing things  are  built  up  of  the  same  materials,  while 
Hunter  demonstrated  the  likenesses  in  animal 


68  HUXLEY 

structure.  Towards  the  close  of  that  century, 
Linnaeus  had  completed  his  great  scheme  of  classifica- 
tion of  plants  and  animals,  dividing  the  latter  into  six 
classes :  the  Vertebrates  into  mammals,  birds,  am- 
phibians (including  reptiles),  and  fishes ;  and  the 
Invertebrates  into  insects  and  worms.  Aristotle  had 
conceived  of  life  as  a  ladder  whose  steps  represented 
the  several  animals  in  ascending  scale  :  Lamarck  (to 
whom  Huxley  pays  high  tribute  '),  with  genuine  in- 
sight, depicted  it  as  a  many-branched  tree,  and  there- 
fore, as  interrelated  and  interdependent.  Cuvier  re- 
duced Linnaeus's  six  divisions  to  four :  Vertebrata,  or 
backboned  (fishes  to  men) ;  Mollusca,  or  soft-bodied 
(snails,  oysters,  etc.)  ;  Articulata,  or  jointed  (spiders, 
bees,  ants,  etc.),  and  Radiata,  or  rayed  (jelly-fish, 
polyps,  sea-anemones). 

Meanwhile,  the  microscope,  by  which,  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  seventeenth  century,  Malpighi  had  made 
pioneer  discoveries,  was  becoming  more  and  more  the 
important  instrument  of  examination  of  the  internal 
structure  of  living  things,  and  hence  opening  the  way 
to  inquiry  into  their  origin  and  history.  The  study 
of  anatomy  advanced  to  comparison  of  the  structures 
and  of  the  several  corresponding  organs  in  divers 
plants  and  animals,  and  of  the  functions  discharged 
by  those  organs;  hence  the  rise  of  the  comparative 
1 II.  59- 


THE    DISCOVERER  69 

method,  with  its  demonstration  of  fundamental  rela- 
tions between  living  things.  Schleiden  discovered 
that  the  cell  is  the  unit  of  plant-life ;  and  Schwann 
proved  that  the  same  is  true  of  animals.  Harvey's 
formula  of  development,  "  All  life  comes  from  an 
egg  "  (pmne  vivum  ex  ovo),  gave  place  to  the  doctrine 
of  omnis  cellula  e  cellitla.  The  lowest  animals  are  one- 
celled,  or,  sometimes,  a  loosely  connected  cluster  of 
cells ;  all  other  animals  are  built  up  of  a  number  of 
cells,  whence  tissues  and  organs  are  developed.  In 
1844,  five  years  after  Schwann's  demonstration,  Von 
Mohl  showed  that  each  cell  contains  a  viscous,  gran- 
ular-looking, highly  active  substance,  the  result  of  a 
very  complex  union  of  carbon  (to  which  Haeckel  as- 
signs the  chief  activity),  hydrogen,  oxygen,  and  nitro- 
gen. This  substance  is  known  as  protoplasm,  and  is, 
in  Huxley's  familiar  phrase,  "  the  physical  basis  of 
life."  Some  years  before  this,  Von  Baer  had  observed 
that  the  embryos  of  birds,  dogs,  fish,  and  other  back- 
boned animals,  including  man,  are  all  alike  during 
their  earlier  stages.  It  is  concerning  Von  Baer's 
writings  that  Huxley  said  none  had  made  so  great  an 
impression  on  him  down  to  the  publication  of  the 
Origin  of  Species1;  and  it  was  in  Von  Baer's  Law 
of  Development  that  Mr.  Spencer  found  hints  and 
evidence  supporting  his  own  theory  of  advance 
1 1.  175,  and  cf.  163. 


70  HUXLEY 

from  the  simple  to  the  complex  as  applied  to  the 
cosmos. 

The  effect  of  these  discoveries  was  to  produce  an 
unsettled  feeling  as  to  the  truth  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
fixity  of  species.  Lamarck  was  the  most  prominent, 
but  not  the  only,  naturalist  of  the  eighteenth  century 
to  suggest  that  the  various  species  had  not  been  sepa- 
rately created,  but  had  been  developed  by  sundry 
causes,  operating  through  long  ages,  from  a  few 
simple  forms.  It  was  a  perilous  step  in  those  days  of 
the  long-reaching  secular  arm  to  throw  doubt  on  the 
account  of  the  creation  contained  in  a  document 
which  God  Himself  was  believed  to  have  inspired ; 
but  the  doubt  once  harboured,  a  mass  of  facts  telling 
against  the  orthodox  view  came  into  unwonted  sig- 
nificance. Every  scheme  of  classification  hitherto 
propounded  had  assumed  the  immutability  of  the 
several  groups ;  the  conception  of  any  fundamental 
relation  of  the  several  types  to  a  common  primitive 
type  was  unborn  ;  and  the  most  superficial  comparison 
between  the  vertebrates,  in  which  some  structural  re- 
semblances were  obvious,  and  the  loose  and  confused 
medley  covered  by  the  term  invertebrate,  was  suf- 
ficient to  negative  any  idea  of  an  underlying  unity 
that  might  be  broached. 

The  illustrious  Cuvier  regarded  the  several  groups 
as  the  outcome  of  a  preordained  plan  of  the  Creator, 


THE    DISCOVERER  'Jl 

and  believed  that  each  successive  annihilation  of  plants 
and  animals  was  followed  by  a  fresh  creative  fiat. 
His  most  distinguished  pupil,  Owen,  likewise  ex- 
plained the  succession  of  species  as  the  operation  of 
"  a  continuously  creational  law."  But,  nevertheless, 
facts  were  pouring  in  which  could  not  be  thus  inter- 
preted. The  fossil-yielding  rocks,  whose  contents 
both  these  great  anatomists  were  arranging,  making 
the  dry  bones  tell  the  story  of  a  long  and  connected 
life-history,  and  of  the  descent  of  certain  existing  ani- 
mals along  well-marked  ancestral  lines,  were  to  prove 
the  most  sure  foundation  on  which  the  doctrine  of 
organic  evolution  rests.  Lyell's  Principles  of  Geology 
raised  the  question,  "  If  natural  causation  is  compe- 
tent to  account  for  the  not-living  part  of  the  globe, 
why  should  it  not  account  for  the  living  part  ? " 
Herbert  Spencer  was  asking  which  was  the  more  ra- 
tional theory  to  account  for  the  existence  of  millions 
of  species  : — 

Is  it  most  likely  that  there  have  been  ten  millions 
of  special  creations ;  or  is  it  most  likely  that  by  con- 
tinual modifications,  due  to  change  of  circumstances, 
ten  millions  of  varieties  have  been  produced  as  varie- 
ties are  being  produced  still  ?  * 

The  answer  to  that  question — an  answer  which  in- 
volved the  putting  of  more  momentous  questions — 

1  Leader,  2oth  March,  1852. 


72  HUXLEY 

was  not  forthcoming  for  another  seven  years.  As  for 
Huxley's  position  in  the  matter,  he  says,  in  the  chap- 
ter "  On  the  Reception  of  the  Origin  of  Species," 
which  he  contributed  to  Darwin's  Life  and  Letters, 
that  he  was  "  not  brought  into  serious  contact  with 
the  4  species'  question  until  after  1850."  He  had 
"  long  done  with  the  Pentateuchal  cosmogony,"  and 
he  rejected  all  theories  of  "  archetypal  ideas,"  "  per- 
fecting principles,"  and  the  like  ;  but  the  frequent 
discussions  which  he  had  with  Mr.  Spencer  from 
1852  onwards  failed  to  drive  him  from  his  "agnostic 
position."  His  difficulties  were  twofold  :  — 

Firstly,  that  up  to  that  time  the  evidence  in  favour 
of  transmutation  was  wholly  insufficient ;  and  sec- 
ondly, that  no  suggestion  respecting  the  causes  of 
transmutation  assumed,  which  had  been  made,  was  in 
any  way  adequate  to  explain  the  phenomena.  Look- 
ing back  at  the  state  of  knowledge  at  that  time,  I 
really  do  not  see  that  any  other  conclusion  was 
justifiable.1 

He  sums  up  his  attitude  in  two  words,  as  that  of 
"  critical  expectancy." 

"  Wandering  between  two  worlds :  one  dead, 
The  other  powerless  to  be  born." 

At    his    first    interview    with    Darwin    he  expressed, 

"  with    all    the    confidence    of  youth    and  imperfect 

knowledge,"  his  belief  in  the  sharpness  of  the  lines 

1  Darwin's  Life  and  Letters,  ii.  p.  188. 


THE    DISCOVERER  73 

of  demarcation  between  natural  groups,  and  in  the 
absence  of  transitional  forms. 

I  was  not  aware,  at  that  time,  that  he  had  been  many 
years  brooding  over  the  species  question ;  and  the 
humorous  smile  which  accompanied  his  gentle 
answer,  that  such  was  not  altogether  his  view,  long 
haunted  and  puzzled  me. l 

The  incident  may  have  recalled  to  his  mind  an  inter- 
view with  Faraday  in  the  old  student  days  at  Charing 
Cross  Hospital,  of  which  he  tells  in  one  of  his  letters 
from  the  Rattlesnake.  He  had  made  one  of  the  man- 
ifold attempts  to  realise  perpetual  motion,  and,  having 
put  his  scheme  on  paper,  took  it  to  the  Royal  Institu- 
tion, at  the  door  of  which  he  ran  against  "  a  little 
man  in  a  brown  coat."  The  "  little  man  "  was  Fara- 
day, who,  although  he  knew  nothing  of  Huxley,  at 
once  looked  at  the  plan  which  he  had  drawn,  and 
then  asked  him  if  he  "  was  acquainted  with  mecha- 
nism, what  we  call  the  laws  of  motion  ?  " 

I  saw  that  all  was  up  with  my  poor  scheme,  so 
after  trying  a  little  to  explain,  in  the  course  of  which 
I  certainly  failed  in  giving  him  a  clear  idea  of  what  I 
would  be  at,  I  thanked  him  for  his  attention,  and 
went  off  as  dissatisfied  as  ever. 2 

Needless  to  say,  as  with  himself  and  Darwin,  the 
two  were  to  meet  in  very  different  relations  in  a  few 
1  Darwin's  Life  and  Letters,  ii.  p.  196.  »  j.  22. 


74  HUXLEY 

years,  when  Huxley's  sense  of  humour  would  impel 
him  to  remind  Faraday  of  the  lesson  learned  from 
him. 

The  more  important  of  Huxley's  original  contribu- 
tions to  biological  science  may  now  be  set  forth,  with 
as  much  freedom  from  technical  terms  as  the  subjects 
permit. 

The  discoveries  of  Schleiden  and  Schwann  in  cell- 
structure,  as  well  as  those  of  Von  Baer  in  compara- 
tive embryology,  were  known  to  Huxley  when, 
"  with  microscope  lashed  to  the  mast,"  he  examined 
the  fragile  organisms,  "  as  the  sand  of  the  seashore 
innumerable."  To  those  discoveries  he  made  an  im- 
portant addition  in  detecting  that  the  Medusae  are 
built  up  of  two  cell-layers,  or  "  foundation-mem- 
branes," enclosing  a  stomach-cavity.  From  the  outer 
layer  the  skin  and  nervous  system  (as  to  the  ex- 
istence of  which  latter,  since  proven,  Huxley  was  at 
the  time  doubtful)  are . developed  ;  and  from  the  inner 
layer  the  alimentary  and  other  organs  are  developed. 
He  also  found  that  the  reproductive  organs  are  exter- 
nal, and  that  all  the  Medusas  have  thread-cells  where- 
with poison  is  discharged  at  their  prey.  He  then 
made  search  for  the  presence  of  these  several  features 
in  other  families  of  the  Hydrozoa,  and  found  unity 
of  plan  throughout.  In  modern  classification,  there 
are  three  grades  of  animals  :  the  Protozoa,  which  em- 


THE    DISCOVERER  75 

brace  only  the  one-celled ;  and  the  Coelenterata  and 
Coelomata,  grouped  as  many-celled,  under  the  term 
Metazoa.  Even  this  scheme  is  under  modification — 
the  animals  known  as  sponges  being  now  assigned  a 
separate  place  as  "  an  independent  and  sterile  branch 
of  the  tree  of  life,"  a  branch,  perhaps,  in  direct 
descent  from  the  one-celled  organism.1  The  Me- 
dusae, hydra,  and  sea-anemones  are  grouped  under 
Coelenterata,  or  hollow-bodied,  comprising  all  two- 
layered  animals.  The  Coelomata  comprise  all 
animals  in  which  a  third  foundation-membrane  has 
been  developed,  and  which  possess  a  coelom,  or  true 
stomach,  with  blood-vessels.  They  embrace  every 
animal  from  a  worm  to  a  man. 

Huxley's  next  step  was  to  compare  the  two  founda- 
tion-membranes of  the  Coelenterata  with  the  serous 
and  mucous  layers  of  the  embryos  of  vertebrates  ;  and 
here,  although  he  then  guessed  it  not,  he  made  a  con- 
tribution of  the  highest  importance  to  the  doctrine  of 
descent.  Von  Baer  had  shown  the  resemblances  be- 
tween all  back-boned  animals  in  their  passage  from 
the  embryo  to  the  adult  state,  and  Huxley  showed 
that,  in  still  earlier  stages  of  their  development,  they 
exhibited  the  two  foundation-membranes  of  the 
Coelenterata,  thus  recording,  as  it  were,  the  history 

1 A  Treatise  on  Zoology.     Part  II.     The  Porifera  and  Ccelen- 
terata.     Edited  by  E.  Ray  Lankester,  F.R.S. 


76  HUXLEY 

of  their  evolution  from  those  lower  organisms.  It  is 
easy  enough  to  us,  looking  back,  to  see  what  a  key  to 
the  proof  of  the  fundamental  unity  of  living  things 
this  supplied ;  but  even  the  prevision  of  Huxley, 
shown  so  markedly  in  many  ways,  was  obscured  by 
the  dominance  of  the  notion  of  fixity  outside  certain 
well-marked  lines.  For  in  1853  ne  writes  that  "there 
is  no  progression  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  type,  but 
merely  a  more  or  less  complete  evolution  of  one 
type."  Nevertheless,  his  acute  comparison  between 
the  Crelenterata  and  the  Coelomata  was  destined  to 
supply  proof  of  the  progression  which  he  questioned. 
His  discovery,  says  Professor  Allman, 

that  the  body  of  the  Medusse  is  essentially  composed 
of  two  membranes,  an  outer  and  an  inner,  and  his 
recognition  of  these  as  the  homologues  of  the  two 
primary  germinal  leaflets  in  the  vertebrate  embryo,  is 
one  of  the  greatest  claims  of  his  splendid  work  on  the 
recognition  of  zoologists.  This  discovery  stands  at 
the  very  base  of  a  philosophical  zoology,  and  of  a 
true  conception  of  the  affinities  of  animals.  It  is  the 
ground  on  which  Haeckel  has  founded  his  famous 
Gastraea-theory,  and  without  it  Kowalesky  could  never 
have  announced  his  great  discover)'  of  the  affinity  of 
the  Ascidians  and  Vertebrates,  by  which  zoologists 
have  been  startled. ! 

Noting,  by  the  way,  that  before   Huxley  sailed   in 
the  Rattlesnake,  he  had  made  the  interesting  discovery 
•1.40. 


THE    DISCOVERER  77 

that  the  composition  of  the  blood  of  the  lancelet,  a 
very  low  vertebrate,  approached  that  of  the  blood  of 
the  higher  vertebrates,  we  find  his  work  on  the  Me- 
dusae followed  by  a  further  contribution  to  knowledge 
of  organic  relation  in  an  examination  of  the  structure 
of  the  sea-squirts,  or  Ascidians,  so  called  from  their 
resemblance  to  a  double-necked  bottle  (Greek  askidion, 
a  small  bottle).  These  animals  are  found  singly,  and 
also  in  clusters,  and  interest  in  them,  as  hinted  in  the 
quotation  from  Professor  Allman,  has  deepened  since 
the  discovery  that  they  are  in  the  line  of  the  develop- 
ment from  invertebrate  to  vertebrate  which  ends  in 
man  himself.  Still  feeling  his  way  towards  the  great 
central  doctrine  of  unity,  denial  of  which  is  the  only 
heresy  from  which  a  man  need  pray  to  be  delivered, 
Huxley  made  Schwann's  cell-theory  the  basis  of  ex- 
amination into  the  identity  of  structure  in  plants  and 
animals.  He  showed — and  this  with  luminous  skill 
in  the  famous  "  lay  sermon  "  on  "  The  Physical  Basis 
of  Life  " — that  the  cell  is  the  unit  of  structure,  and 
not  the  unit  of  function ;  that,  in  technical  terms,  it 
is  morphological,  not  physiological,  the  "  protoplasm  " 
being  the  fundamental  element.  "  Although,"  re- 
marks Professor  Ray  Lankester  — 

it  is  forty  years  since  the  "  Review  of  the  Cell 
Theory  "  was  published,  and  although  our  knowledge 
of  cell-structure  has  made  immense  progress  during 


78  HUXLEY 

those  forty  years,  yet  the  main  contention  of  that 
article — viz.,  that  cells  are  not  the  cause  but  the  re- 
sult of  organisation,  in  fact  are,  as  Huxley  says,  to 
the  tide  of  life  what  the  line  of  shells  and  weeds  on 
the  seashore  is  to  the  tide  of  the  living  sea — is  even 
now  being  reasserted,  and,  in  a  slightly  modified  form, 
is  by  very  many  cytologists  admitted  as  having  more 
truth  in  it  than  the  opposed  view  and  its  later  out- 
comes, to  the  effect  that  the  cell  is  the  unit  of  life  in 
which  and  through  which  alone  living  matter  mani- 
fests our  activities.1 

The  contents  of  the  Scientific  Memoirs  show  that  in 
all  the  papers  which  Huxley  contributed  to  the  Royal 
Society  and  other  learned  bodies,  his  researches  were 
ruled  not  so  much  by  the  desire  to  classify  and  label 
specimens  as  to  establish  affinities  between  organisms, 
and  to  supersede  the  ill-assorted  jumble,  which,  for 
example,  lumped  crabs  and  bees  together  under  one 
heading,  by  an  orderly  and  demonstrable  classification. 
Down  to  1854,  when  he  succeeded  Forbes  at  the 
School  of  Mines,  his  studies  had  been  restricted  to 
invertebrates ;  but  from  that  period,  fossil  forms,  for 
which,  as  already  remarked,  he  had  no  taste,2  were  to 
occupy  a  main  portion  of  his  time.  They  appeared 
to  take  him  off  the  main  track  that  might  lead  to  a 
great  generalisation  :  he  saw  no  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem of  transmutation  save  in  study  of  the  living 
thing ;  there  was,  as  he  said  in  a  lecture  at  the  Royal 

1  I.  140.  »  Ante,  p.  10. 


THE    DISCOVERER  79 

Institution  in  1855,  "  no  real  parallel  between  the 
successive  forms  assumed  in  the  development  of  the 
life  of  the  individual  at  present,  and  those  which  have 
appeared  at  different  epochs  in  the  past."  But,  so 
complete  was  the  revolution  effected  by  the  Origin  of 
Species^  that  in  1878  he  wrote  :  — 

On  the  evidence  of  palaeontology,  the  evolution  of 
many  existing  forms  of  animal  life  from  their  prede- 
cessors is  no  longer  an  hypothesis  but  an  historical 
fact.1 

While,  in  an  address  to  the  British  Association  at 
York  two  years  afterwards,  he  said  :  — 

If  the  doctrine  of  evolution  had  not  existed,  palae- 
ontologists must  have  invented  it,  so  irresistibly  is  it 
forced  upon  the  mind  by  the  study  of  the  remains  of 
the  Tertiary  Mammalia  which  have  been  brought  to 
light  since 


Huxley  soon  found  that  extinct  animals  also  afforded 
play  for  his  favourite  inquiry  into  the  architecture  and 
affinities  of  organisms,  and  hence,  in  his  hands,  the 
fossil  became,  as  it  were,  a  living  thing,  bringing  a 
message  from  the  past.  His  inquiry  into  the  char- 
acter of  some  supposed  fish-shields  from  the  Down- 
ton  sandstone,  near  Ludlow,  led  to  the  revolutionising 
of  old  theories  concerning  the  earliest  fishes.  He 
showed  that  the  huge  creatures  named,  from  the  com- 

»  Coll.  Essays,  ii.  p.  226.  2  n.  341. 


80  HUXLEY 

plex  structure  of  their  teeth,  Labyrinthodonts,  are 
allied  to  fishes,  amphibians,  and  reptiles ;  and  if  the 
intermediate  forms  between  birds  and  reptiles  are  not 
so  clearly  traceable  as  he  and  others  then  held,  his 
demonstration  of  the  affinity  between  the  two  was  one 
of  his  most  brilliant  successes. 

One  great  consequence  of  these  researches  was  that 
science  was  enriched  by  a  clear  demonstration  of  the 
many  and  close  affinities  between  reptiles  and  birds, 
so  that  the  two  henceforth  came  to  be  known  under 
the  joint  title  of  Sauropsida,  the  Amphibia  being  at 
the  same  time  distinctly  more  separated  from  the 
reptiles,  and  their  relations  to  fishes  more  clearly  sig- 
nified by  the  joint  title  of  Ichthyopsida.  At  the  same 
time  proof  was  brought  forward  that  the  line  of  the 
descent  of  the  Sauropsida  clearly  diverged  from  that 
of  the  Mammalia,  both  starting  from  some  common 
ancestry.  And  besides  this  great  generalisation,  the 
importance  of  which,  both  from  a  classificatory  and 
from  an  evolutional  point  of  view,  needs  no  com- 
ment, there  came  out  of  the  same  researches  numer- 
ous lesser  contributions  to  the  advancement  of  mor- 
phological knowledge,  including  among  others  an 
attempt,  in  many  respects  successful,  at  a  classification 
of  birds.1 

But  what  will,  perhaps,  make  closer  appeal  to  the 
general  inquirer,  is  the  story  of  the  fulfilment  of 
Huxley's  prophecy  as  to  the  discovery  of  the  pedigree 
of  the  horse,  which,  down  to  1870,  had  been  traced 
to  a  three-toed  ancestor. 

> »  Obituary  Notice  of  T.  H.  Huxley,"  by  Sir  Michael  Foster. 
Proc.  Royal  Society,  vol.  lix. 


THE    DISCOVERER  8 1 

The  ungulate  or  hoofed  quadrupeds  are  divided  into 
the  odd-toed  and  the  even-toed,  the  toes  never  exceed- 
ing, except  in  the  case  of  monstrosities,  five  on  each 
limb.  The  horse,  whose  nearest  allies  in  descent  are 
the  tapir  and  the  rhinoceros,  belongs  to  the  odd-toed 
or  Perissodactyla  (Greek,  perissos,  uneven,  and  daktulos^ 
finger).  In  the  horse  of  to-day  the  toes  have  become 
absorbed,  so  that  what  is  called  its  "  knee "  corre- 
sponds to  the  position  of  a  man's  wrist ;  the  metacar- 
pus, or  "  cannon-bone,"  answers  to  the  third  or 
middle  finger  of  the  human  hand ;  the  "  pastern," 
"  coronary,"  and  "  coffin  "  bones  answer  to  the  joints 
.of  that  finger,  and  the  hoof  to  its  nail.  The  smaller, 
or  "  splint  bones,"  represent  our  second  and  fourth 
fingers,  and  some  small  bony  prominences  at  the 
bases  of  these  probably  represent  our  first  and  fifth 
fingers.1 

Fossil  remains  of  horses  of  the  existing  type  are  found 
as  far  back  as  the  later  Tertiary  period  ;  in  the  later 
Miocene  or  middle  Tertiary  beds,  horse-like  animals 
with  three  toes,  the  middle  one  of  which  touched  the 
ground,  have  been  discovered,  while  the  early  Mio- 
cene deposits  have  yielded  an  animal  with  horse-like 
characters  having  three  complete  toes.  Here  the 
European  evidence  comes  to  an  end,  and  in  summa- 

1  On  the  general  structure  and  modifications  see  The  Horse,  by 
Sir  W.  H.  Flower,  chaps,  iii.,  iv. 


82  HUXLEY 

rising  it  in  his  presidential  address  to  the  Geological 
Society  in  1870,  Huxley  said  that  — 

if  the  expectation  raised  by  the  splints  of  the  horses 
that,  in  some  ancestors  of  the  horses,  these  splints 
would  be  found  to  be  complete  digits,  has  been  veri- 
fied, we  are  furnished  with  very  strong  reasons  for 
looking  for  a  no  less  complete  verification  of  the 
expectation  that  the  three-toed  Plagio/opbus-\\ke 
"  avus "  of  the  horse  must  have  been  a  five-toed 
"  atavus  "  at  some  early  period.1 

In  1876,  when  visiting  America,  he  was  shown  by 
Professor  Marsh  the  remarkable  fossil  found,  among 
others,  in  the  Eocene  formations  of  North  America, 
to  which  the  name  Orohippus  was  given,  and  which 
was  then  the  oldest  known  "  member  of  the  equine 
series."  It  had  four  complete  toes  on  the  front  limb, 
and  three  toes  on  the  hind  limb,  besides  other  features 
linking  it  with  the  chain  of  equine  ancestry.  The 
discovery  evidenced  that  the  accepted  theory  of  the 
European  origin  of  the  horse  must  be  abandoned  in 
favour  of  America,  into  which  continent  that  animal, 
having  become  extinct,  was  imported  by  the  Spaniards. 

In  commenting  on  this  wonderful  "  find,"  in  a 
lecture  given  at  New  York  in  September,  1876, 
Huxley  repeated  the  prophecy  uttered  six  years  be- 
fore:— 

1  Coll.  Essays,  viii.  p.  361. 


THE    DISCOVERER  83 

The  knowledge  we  now  possess  justifies  us  com- 
pletely in  the  anticipation  that,  when  the  still  lower 
Eocene  deposits,  and  those  which  belong  to  the  Cre- 
taceous period,  have  yielded  up  their  remains  of  an- 
cestral equine  animals,  we  shall  find,  first,  a  form  with 
four  complete  toes  and  a  rudiment  of  the  fifth  digit 
in  the  hind  foot;  while,  in  the  older  forms,  the  series 
of  digits  will  be  more  and  more  complete  until  we 
come  to  the  five-toed  animals  in  which,  if  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  is  well-founded,  the  whole  series  must 
have  taken  its  origin.1 

The  prophecy  was  fulfilled  two  months  afterwards  in 
Professor  Marsh's  discovery  of  complete  skeletons  of 
a  five-toed  animal  in  the  early  Eocene  deposits  at 
Wasatch  in  North  America.  The  existence  of  the 
fossil  form,  which  is  named  Phenacodus,  was  known 
to  Professor  Cope  three  years  before  by  its  teeth  alone. 
The  unearthing  of  it,  with  all  the  bones  in  due  place, 
the  terminal  bones  of  the  toes  showing  that  they  were 
encased  in  hoofs,  enabled  palaeontologists  to  assign  it 
a  place  in  the  ungulate  group,  the  type,  as  shown  by 
the  size  of  the  brain-pan,  being  extremely  low. 
"This,"  remarks  Sir  W.  H.  Flower,  "is  exactly  in 
accord  with  what  is  now  generally  known  of  the  pro- 
gressive diminution  of  the  size  of  the  brain  in  all 
groups  of  animals  the  farther  back  we  pass  from  the 
present  time."  2 

Reference   has   been   made  already  to  the    famous 

1  American  Addresses,  p.  89.  2  The  Horse,  p.  22. 


84  HUXLEY 

book  in  which  Huxley  demonstrates  the  physical  and 
psychical  identity  of  man  and  the  higher  apes  with  a 
completeness  never  before  attempted,  but  the  con- 
sideration of  some  of  the  effects  of  that  demon- 
stration will  have  more  fitting  place  in  the  next 
chapter. 

Omitting  any  account  of  Huxley's  minor  discover- 
ies, the  last  one  of  importance  to  be  noted  takes  us 
back  to  1878.  In  that  year,  while  he  was  Fullerian 
Professor  at  the  Royal  Institution,  he  delivered  a 
lecture  on  the  origin  of  the  skull  in  vertebrates.1  In 
1806,  Oken,  a  German  naturalist  of  somewhat 
dreamy  type,  when  walking  in  the  Hartz  Forest, 
picked  up  the  dried  skull  of  a  sheep,  and  the  idea 
struck  him  that  it  was  an  expanded  vertebral  column. 
The  priority  of  idea  was,  apparently  with  justice, 
claimed  by  Goethe,  who  saw  in  it  a  correlate  to  his 
theory  of  the  "  transformation  of  plants  " — /'.  *.,  that 
every  part  of  a  plant  is  made  up  of  stem  and  leaf, 
modified  for  the  particular  function  it  has  to  perform. 
But  what  secured  unquestioned  belief  in  the  view  that 
the  skull  "  is  formed  of  a  series  of  expanded  vertebrae 
moulded  together,"  was  the  support  given  to  it  by 
Owen,  "who  was  at  that  time  the  leading  vertebrate 
anatomist  in  England,"  and  whose  indorsement  may 
be  in  some  measure  explained  by  the  seeming  ac- 
1  Ante,  p.  17. 


THE    DISCOVERER  85 

corclance  of  the  theory  with  his  belief  in  "  archetypal 
ideas." 

Huxley,  ever  acting  on  his  own  maxim,  "  to  regard 
the  value  of  authority  as  neither  greater  nor  less  than 
as  much  as  it  can  prove  itself  to  be  worth,"  was  by 
no  means  convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  vertebral 
theory,  since  it  lacked  such  confirmation  as  compara- 
tive embryology  might  be  expected  to  supply.  After 
examining  a  number  of  skulls  of  fishes,  beasts,  and 
men,  he  was  satisfied  that  each  skull  is  built  upon  a 
common  plan,  and  that  the  primitive  skull  in  the 
lowest  or  cartilaginous  fishes,  where  traces  of  the 
original  vertebrae  might  be  expected,  "  is  an  unseg- 
mented  gristly  brain-box,  and  that  in  higher  forms  the 
vertebral  nature  of  the  skull  cannot  be  thought  of  for 
a  moment,  since  many  of  the  bones,  for  example, 
those  along  the  top  of  the  skull,  arise  in  the  skin. 
.  .  .  It  may  be  true  to  say  that  there  is  a  primi- 
tive identity  of  structure  between  the  spinal  or  verte- 
bral column  and  the  skull,  but  it  is  no  more  true  that 
the  adult  skull  is  a  modified  vertebral  column  than  it 
would  be  to  affirm  that  the  vertebral  column  is  a 
modified  skull."  This  demolition  of  a  hitherto  un- 
challenged theory  added  to  the  strain  on  the  relations 
between  Owen  and  Huxley,  but  that  minor  result  was 
of  no  moment  to  the  latter,  the  larger  issue  of  whose 
labours  lay  in  the  "  marking  an  epoch  in  England  in 


86  HUXLEY 

vertebrate  morphology,"  and  in  "  enunciating  views 
which,  if  somewhat  modified,  are  still,  in  the  main, 
the  views  of  the  anatomists  of  to-day."  ' 

Linnaeus  says  that  "  fossils  are  not  the  children, 
but  the  parents,  of  rocks,"  and  the  interest  aroused  in 
the  contents  of  the  fossil-yielding  rocks  when  Huxley 
went  to  the  School  of  Mines  was  extended  to  the 
rocks  themselves.  During  his  more  official  connec- 
tion with  the  Geological  Society  as  Deputy-President 
in  1862,  and  as  President  in  1869  and  1870,  he  de- 
livered three  addresses,  each  of  which  holds  matter  of 
permanent  value.  As  already  shown,  the  latest  of 
these,  which  was  entitled  "  Palaeontology  and  the 
Doctrine  of  Evolution,"  dealt  with  the  ancestry  of 
the  horse ;  but  it  embraced  the  more  general  question 
of  the  evidence  as  to  intermediate  links  between 
species  supplied  by  the  fossiliferous  rocks.  This  in- 
volved a  revision  of  opinions  expressed  in  the  address 
of  1862,  and  the  clear  deliverance  that  Huxley  enter- 
tained "  no  sort  of  doubt  that  the  Reptiles,  Birds,  and 
Mammals  of  the  Trias  are  the  direct  descendants  of 
Reptiles,  Birds,  and  Mammals  which  existed  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  Paleozoic  epoch,  but  not  in  any 
area  of  the  present  dry  land  which  has  yet  been  ex- 
plored by  the  geologist."  In  the  1862  address  ref- 

>Sir  Michael  Foster,  "Obituary  Notice  of  T.  H.  Huxley," 
Proc.  Royal  Society,  vol.  lix. 


THE    DISCOVERER  87 

erence  was  made  to  the  two  facts  established  by 
palaeontology  :  I.  That  one  and  the  same  area  of 
the  earth's  surface  has  been  successively  occupied  by 
very  different  kinds  of  living  beings  ;  2.  That  the 
order  of  succession  established  in  one  locality  holds 
good,  approximately,  in  all. 

The  inference  which  geologists  had  drawn  from 
this  was  that  wherever  rocks  containing  the  same 
kind  of  fossils  are  found  in  widely  separated  parts  of 
the  globe,  they  were  formed  at  the  same  time.  Cor- 
respondence in  succession  came  to  be  looked  upon  as 
correspondence  in  age.  Huxley,  on  the  other  hand, 
argued  that  the  presence  of  fossils  identical  in  type  in 
distant  rock-formations  pointed  to  an  opposite  con- 
clusion. On  the  theory  of  special  creation  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  same  animal  remains  in  the  same 
order  of  strata  in  different  zones  was  explicable.  But 
on  the  theory  of  evolution  considerable  periods  of 
time  must  have  elapsed  to  permit  of  the  migration  of 
animals  from  place  to  place.  Therefore,  Huxley 
suggested  that  the  ambiguous  and  misleading  term 
"synchronism"  should  be  discarded  in  favour  of  the 
term  "  homotaxial,"  as  indicating  that  the  presence 
of  certain  fossils  in  the  same  relative  position  in  the 
succession  of  strata  indicated  a  similarity  of  order,  but 
not  an  identity  of  date. 

In   the   1869  address  he  discussed  the  interesting 


88  HUXLEY 

question  of  the  age  of  the  earth  as  determining  the 
length  of  time  which  elapsed  before  it  became  cool 
enough  to  be  the  abode  of  life.  On  this  question  the 
physicists  and  the  biologists  were  at  issue. 

At  the  outset  the  earth  was  a  mass  of  glowing,  in- 
candescent gas,  hurled-off,  like  its  -fellow-planets, 
from  the  vast  nebula  which  was  to  condense  into  the 
solar  system.  Passing,  under  the  continuous  loss  of 
heat,  from  the  gaseous  through  the  liquid  and  viscous 
to  the  solid  state,  it  reached  a  degree  of  temperature 
which  permitted  of  the  existence  of  life  upon  its  sur- 
face. The  first  living  things  were  plants,  and  the 
carbon,  which  is  an  essential  element  in  their  struc- 
ture, could  not  be  detached  from  the  atmosphere 
except  at  a  temperature  "  somewhat  above  the  freez- 
ing-point, and  somewhat  less  than  half-way  to  the 
boiling-point  of  water."  Hence  the  question,  At 
what  period  of  its  history  did  our  globe,  or  that  por- 
tion of  it  on  which  life  first  appeared  (probably,  as 
Buffbn  suggested,  the  polar  area,  as  this  would  be  the 
earliest  to  cool),  arrive  at  that  temperature  ?  To  this 
the  mathematical  physicists,  at  the  head  of  whom 
stands  Lord  Kelvin,  essayed  answer,  the  data  for 
which  were  supplied — I,  by  the  rate  at  which  the 
earth  parted  with  its  store  of  heat;  2,  by  the  decrease 
in  the  length  of  its  day  ;  and  3,  by  the  time  that  the 
sun,  as  the  source  of  life,  has  illuminated  the  earth. 


THE    DISCOVERER  89 

Of  these,  only  the  briefest  summary  is  here  possible. 
As  to  the  first,  Lord  Kelvin  (then  Sir  William 
Thomson)  assumed  that  the  matter  of  which  the 
globe  is  made  up  is  uniform  throughout,  and,  there- 
fore, that  the  rate  at  which  it  has  parted  with  its  heat 
is  uniform.  After  hesitating  between  the  statement 
that  "  the  consolidation  cannot  have  taken  place  less 
than  twenty  million  years  ago,  nor  more  than  four 
hundred  million  years  ago,"  Lord  Kelvin  agreed  that 
"  some  such  period  of  time  as  one  hundred  million 
years  ago  "  might  be  taken  as  a  safely  approximate 
estimate.  As  to  the  second,  when  the  earth  and 
moon  were  very  near  each  other,  the  rotation  was 
enormously  quickened,  and,  as  the  moon  retreated, 
the  earth's  rotation  slowed,  involving  the  gradual 
lengthening  of  the  day.  The  retardation  is  due  to 
the  friction  of  the  tides,  which,  under  the  pull  of  sun, 
and,  in  far  greater  degree,  of  moon,  act  as  a  brake 
upon  the  globe,  increasing  the  day  by  about  twenty- 
two  seconds  of  time  in  every  century.  The  period 
of  the  earth's  habitability  was  reached  when  the  day 
was  approximately  what  it  is  now,  permitting  of  the 
alternations  of  light  and  darkness,  heat  and  cold,  and 
other  conditions  now  prevailing.  Lord  Kelvin  esti- 
mates "  that  the  centrifugal  force  at  the  time  of  solid- 
ification cannot  have  been  more  than  three  per  cent, 
greater  than  it  is  at  present,  and,  therefore,  having 


90  HUXLEY 

regard  to  the  known  rate  of  retardation  of  the  earth's 
rotation,  this  event  occurred  not  more  than  one  hun- 
dred million  years  ago." 

As  to  the  third,  physicists  are  agreed  that  the  main- 
tenance of  the  sun's  energy  is  to  be  explained  as  due 
to  the  heat  generated  by  the  falling-in  and  resulting 
collision  of  the  particles  of  matter  of  which  he  is 
composed,  involving  the  shrinkage  of  his  diameter  at 
the  rate  of  two  hundred  and  twenty  feet  yearly,  or 
four  miles  per  century.  Lord  Kelvin,  admitting  that 
"  the  estimates  are  necessarily  very  vague,"  is  of 
opinion  that  "  the  sun  may  have  already  illuminated 
the  earth  for  as  many  as  one  hundred  million  years  ; 
but  it  is  almost  certain  that  he  has  not  illuminated  the 
earth  for  five  hundred  million  years." 

Commenting  on  the  indefiniteness  of  these  and  the 
foregoing  estimates,  Huxley  aptly  remarks  that  — 

Mathematics  may  be  compared  to  a  mill  of  exquisite 
workmanship,  which  grinds  you  stuff  in  any  degree  of 
fineness,  but,  nevertheless,  what  you  get  out  depends 
on  what  you  put  in  ;  and  as  the  grandest  mill  in  the 
world  will  not  extract  wheat-flour  from  peascods,  so 
pages  of  formulae  will  not  get  a  definite  result  out  of 
loose  data.1 

But  although  some  mathematicians  of  lesser  calibre 
thought  that  Lord  Kelvin  had  conceded  too  long  a 

1  Lay  Sermons,  p.  216. 


THE    DISCOVERER  9! 

period,  there  was  sufficient  accord  between  them  to 
make  the  biologists  feel  themselves  in  a  tight  place. 
Reckoning,  from  the  rate  at  which  materials,  through 
the  agency  of  rivers,  are  being  deposited  on  ocean- 
bottoms,  how  long  a  time  was  necessary  for  the  for- 
mation of  the  sedimentary  rocks,  and  of  rocks  pre- 
sumably within  the  life-period,  the  aggregate  thickness 
of  which  is  estimated  at  about  fifty  miles,  they  found 
the  years  allowed  by  the  mathematicians  wholly  insuf- 
ficient. Darwin  was  much  concerned.  Writing  to 
Wallace  in  1869,  he  says:  "Thomson's  views  of 
the  recent  age  of  the  world  have  been  for  some  time 
one  of  my  sorest  troubles;"  and  again,  in  1871,  "I 
can  say  nothing  more  about  missing  links  than  what  I 
have  said.  I  should  rely  much  on  pre-Silurian  times ; 
but  then  comes  Sir  W.  Thomson,  like  an  odious 
spectre."  Huxley  was  in  no  wise  disturbed. 


Biology  [he  said]  takes  her  time  from  geology. 
The  only  reason  we  have  for  believing  in  the  slow 
rate  of  the  change  in  living  forms  is  the  fact  that  they 
persist  through  a  series  of  deposits  which,  geology  in- 
forms us,  have  taken  a  long  while  to  make.  If  the 
geological  clock  is  wrong,  all  the  naturalist  will  have 
to  do  is  to  modify  his  notions  of  the  rapidity  of 
change  accordingly.  And  I  venture  to  point  out  that 
when  we  are  told  that  the  limitation  of  the  period 
during  which  living  beings  have  inhabited  this  planet 
to  one,  two,  or  three  hundred  million  years  requires  a 
complete  revolution  in  geological  speculation,  the  onus 


92  HUXLEY 

probandi  rests  on  the  maker  of  the  assertion,  who 
brings  forward  not  a  shadow  of  evidence  in  its 
support. ' 

Meantime,  occasion  was  given  to  eager  adversaries 
to  say,  "  Behold  how  good  and  how  pleasant  a  thing 
it  is  to  see  this  discord  !  "  and  it  is  not  surprising  that 
the  hope  was  nurtured  in  the  minds  of  many  that  so 
serious  a  disagreement  would  in  some  way  wreck  the 
doctrine  of  evolution.  That  reluctant  convert  to  the 
theory  of  the  mutability  of  species,  Lord  Salisbury, 
did  not  fail  to  press  home  the  difficulty  in  his  Presi- 
dential Address  to  the  British  Association.  After  re- 
ferring to  the  "  penurious  spirit "  shown  by  Professor 
Tait  in  cutting  down  Lord  Kelvin's  estimate  of  one 
hundred  million  years  to  ten  million  years,  he  chaffed 
their  opponents  with  revelling  in  the  prodigality  of 
the  ciphers  which  they  put  at  the  end  of  the  earth's 
hypothetical  life. 

Long  cribbed  and  cabined  within  the  narrow  bounds 
of  the  popular  chronology,  they  have  exulted  wantonly 
in  their  new  freedom.  They  have  lavished  their 
millions  of  years  with  the  open  hand  of  a  prodigal 
heir  indemnifying  himself  by  present  extravagance  for 
the  enforced  self-denial  of  "his  youth.  But  it  cannot 
be  gainsaid  that  their  theories  require  at  least  all  this 
elbow-room.  If  we  think  of  that  vast  distance  over 
which  Darwin  conducts  us  from  the  jelly-fish  lying 


Lay  Sermons,  p.  213. 


THE    DISCOVERER  93 

on  the  primeval  beach  to  man  as  we  know  him  now  ; 
if  we  reflect  that  the  prodigious  change  requisite  to 
transform  one  into  the  other  is  made  up  of  a  chain  of 
generations,  each  advancing  by  a  minute  variation 
from  the  form  of  its  predecessor,  and  if  we  further 
reflect  that  these  successive  changes  are  so  minute 
that  in  the  course  of  our  historical  period — say  three 
thousand  years — this  progressive  variation  has  not  ad- 
vanced by  a  single  step  perceptible  to  our  eyes,  in 
respect  to  man  or  the  animals  and  plants  with  which 
man  is  familiar,  we  shall  admit  that  for  a  chain  of 
change  so  vast,  of  which  the  smallest  link  is  longer 
than  our  recorded  history,  the  biologists  are  making 
no  extravagant  claim  when  they  demand  at  least  many 
hundred  million  years  for  the  accomplishment  of  the 
stupendous  process.  Of  course,  if  the  mathematicians 
are  right,  the  biologists  cannot  have  what  they  demand. 
If,  for  the  purposes  of  their  theory,  organic  life  must 
have  existed  on  the  globe  more  than  a  hundred  million 
years  ago,  it  must,  under  the  temperature  then  pre- 
vailing, have  existed  in  a  state  of  vapour.  The  jelly- 
fish would  have  been  dissipated  in  steam  long  before 
he  had  had  a  chance  of  displaying  the  advantageous 
variation  which  was  to  make  him  the  ancestor  of  the 
human  race.  I  see,  in  the  eloquent  discourse  of  one 
of  my  most  recent  and  most  distinguished  predecessors 
in  this  chair,  Sir  Archibald  Geikie,  that  the  contro- 
versy is  still  alive.  The  mathematicians  sturdily 
adhere  to  their  figures,  and  the  biologists  are  quite 
sure  the  mathematicians  must  have  made  a  mistake. 
I  will  not  get  myself  into  the  line  of  fire  by  inter- 
vening in  such  a  controversy.  But  until  it  is  adjusted 
the  laity  may  be  excused  for  returning  a  verdict  of 
"not  proven"  upon  the  wider  issues  the  Darwinian 
school  has  raised.1 

1  Times,  gth  August,  1894. 


94  HUXLEY 

Lord  Salisbury  unwittingly  helped  the  cause  which 
his  instincts  prompted  him  to  hinder.  With  that  pre- 
vision of  the  seer  in  combination  with  the  skill  of  the 
discoverer,  which  is  the  possession  only  of  the  rarer 
spirits  of  our  kind,  Huxley  had  pierced  the  core  of 
the  matter  when  he  asked,  "  Is  the  earth  nothing  but 
a  cooling  mass,  4  like  a  hot-water  jar,  such  as  is  used 
in  carriages,'  or  *  a  globe  of  sandstone,'  and  has  its 
cooling  been  uniform  ? "  And  incited  thereto  by 
Lord  Salisbury's  Address,  provocative  as  it  was  of 
discussion  on  so  many  sides,  Professor  Perry,  who 
held  the  common  opinion  that  it  was  "hopeless  to 
expect  that  Lord  Kelvin  should  have  made  an  error 
in  calculation,"  examined  the  subject,  not  "  to  substi- 
tute a  more  correct  age  for  that  obtained  by  Lord 
Kelvin,  but  rather  to  show  that  the  data  from  which 
the  true  age  could  be  calculated  are  not  really 
available."  The  result  of  that  examination  was  to 
challenge  Lord  Kelvin's  assumption  of  a  uniform 
state  of  the  materials  of  the  globe,  and  to  show  that 
"  its  interior  may  be  of  better  conducting  material 
than  the  surface  rock,"  whereby  the  cooling  of  that 
surface  to  a  habitable  condition  would  be  enormously 
quickened,  and  the  life-period  pushed  back  to  the  four 
hundred  million  years  required  by  the  geologists  and 
biologists.  The  details  of  the  process  by  which 
Professor  Perry  arrived  at  his  conclusions  are  too 


THE    DISCOVERER  95 

technical  and  lengthy  for  reproduction  here,1  and, 
moreover,  it  suffices  to  quote  Lord  Kelvin's  admission 
that  his  estimate  may  be  insufficient.  "  I  thought," 
he  says  in  a  letter  to  Nature, "  my  range  from  twenty 
millions  to  four  hundred  millions  was  probably  wide 
enough  ;  but  it  is  quite  possible  that  I  should  have 
put  the  superior  limit  a  good  deal  higher,  perhaps  four 
thousand  instead  of  four  hundred."2  Apropos  of 
Professor  Perry's  results,  Huxley  wrote  in  a  private 
letter,  under  date  of  6th  November,  1894:  "I  am  so 
much  out  of  the  world  now  that  I  had  not  heard  of 
the  l  rift  within  the  lute ''  of  the  mathematicians. 
But  that  a  big  crack  would  show  itself  sooner  or  later 
I  have  never  doubted." 

It  would  be  easy  to  fill  many  pages  of  this  little 
volume  with  a  summarised  account  of  Huxley's 
original  work  in  biology  alone,  but  the  examples 
chosen  may  be  taken  to  constitute  his  chief  claim  to 
the  title  of  discoverer.  They  may  suffice  to  show, 
in  the  words  of  the  tribute  paid  to  him  by  Sir 
Michael  Foster  and  Professor  E.  Ray  Lankester  in 
their  preface  to  the  collection  of  his  Scientific 
Memoirs,  that,  "  apart  from  the  influence  exerted  by 
his  popular  writings,  the  progress  of  biology  during 

1  For   these,  see    Nature,  3<1  January,  1895  '•>  ^h  September, 
1896. 
*  Nature,  3d  January,  1895. 


96  HUXLEY 

the  present  century  was  largely  due  to  labours  of  his 
of  which  the  general  public  knew  nothing,  and  that 
he  was  in  some  respects  the  most  original  and  most 
fertile  in  discovery  of  all  his  fellow-workers  in  the 
same  branch  of  science."  ' 

'Vol.  I.  p.  vi.  (1898). 


Ill 

THE     INTERPRETER 

IN  an  essay  on  the  Origin  of  Species,  written  in 
1860,  Huxley  admits  that  two  years  before  then  "the 
position  of  the  supporters  of  the  special  creation 
theory  seemed  more  impregnable  than  ever,  if  not  by 
its  own  inherent  strength,  at  any  rate  by  the  obvious 
failure  of  all  the  attempts  which  have  been  made  to 
carry  it."  *  If  it  was  discarded,  there  was  nothing  to 
replace  it ;  hence,  like  institutions  for  the  reform  or 
abolition  of  which  the  time  is  not  ripe,  it  existed  on 
sufferance.  Emphasis  of  this  fact  is  necessary  for 
full  understanding  of  the  revolution  whereby  old 
things  passed  away  and  all  things  became  new. 

Huxley  was  a  boy  of  twelve  when  Darwin,  on  his 
return  to  England,  opened  his  "  first  note-book  for 
facts  in  relation  to  the  origin  of  species,"  speculation 
about  the  possible  modification  of  which  had  been 
incited  by  his  observations  on  past  and  present  life- 
forms  on  the  South  American  continent.  Fifteen 
months  afterwards,  in  October,  1838,  he  read  for 
amusement  Malthus  on  Population,  and  he  says  : — 

1  Coll.  Essays,  ii.  p.  69. 
97 


98  HUXLEY 

Being  well  prepared  to  appreciate  the  struggle  for 
existence  which  everywhere  goes  on,  from  long-con- 
tinued observations  of  the  habits  of  plants  and  animals, 
it  at  once  struck  me  that  under  these  circumstances 
favourable  variations  would  tend  to  be  preserved,  and 
unfavourable  ones  destroyed.  The  result  of  this 
would  be  the  formation  of  new  species.1 

In  1842  he  put  his  theory  into  shape,  then  enlarged 
his  manuscript  from  time  to  time,  and  with  that  un- 
paralleled patience  which  controlled  all  his  researches, 
went  on  collecting  masses  of  facts  and  weighing  the 
evidence  deducible  from  them,  not  venturing  to  make 
known,  save  to  his  most  intimate  friends,  his  convic- 
tions as  to  the  mutability  of  species.  It  seemed 
"like  confessing  a  murder,"  he  said.  And  so  the 
matter  drifted  until  1858,  when  there  came  to  him 
from  Dr.  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  who  was  living  at 
Ternate,  an  island  in  the  Malay  Archipelago,  a  com- 
munication in  which  his  own  theory  was  propounded, 
and  in  such  coincidence  of  terms  that  Darwin  told 
Lyell  if  Wallace  had  had  his  MS.  sketch  of  1842, 
"he  could  not  have  made  a  better  short  abstract."  2 
To  complete  the  parallel,  Wallace  also  was  led  to 
think  of  "  positive  checks "  by  reading  Parson 
Malthus.  After  conferring  with  Hooker  and  Lyell, 
both  of  whom  had  seen  Darwin's  abstract  some  years 
before,  it  was  arranged  that  Wallace's  paper  and  a 

1  Darwin's  Life  and  Letters,  i.  p.  83.  »  Ib.t  ii.  p.  1 16. 


THE    INTERPRETER  99 

precis  of  Darwin's  manuscript  should  be  read  at  a 
meeting  of  the  Linnean  Society,  which  was  held  on 
ist  July,  1858. l  Hooker  says  that  the  interest  excited 
was  intense,  but  no  discussion,  only  desultory  talk, 
"  with  bated  breath,"  followed  the  reading,  and  the 
matter  caused  no  commotion  outside  a  limited  circle. 
Huxley  does  not  appear  to  have  been  present,  and 
it  is  doubtful  if  he  knew  aught  of  the  proceedings 
save  by  hearsay.  For,  writing  to  Hooker  on  5th 
September,  1858,  he  says,  "Wallace's  impetus  seems 
to  have  set  Darwin  going  in  earnest,  and  I  am  re- 
joiced to  hear  we  shall  learn  his  views  in  full,  at  last. 
I  look  forward  to  a  great  revolution  being  effected."  2 
And,  in  his  lecture  "  On  the  Persistent  Types  of 
Animal  Life,"  delivered  at  the  Royal  Institution  on 
3d  June,  1859,  tnere  is  no  reference  to  the  Darwin- 
Wallace  theory,  only  allusion  to  the 

hypothesis  which  supposes  the  species  of  living  beings 
living  at  any  time  to  be  the  result  of  the  gradual  modi- 
fication of  preexisting  species — a  hypothesis  which, 
though  unproven  and  sadly  damaged  by  some  of  its 
supporters,  is  yet  the  only  one  to  which  physiology 
lends  any  countenance.3 

He   was    not    a    convert   till    the    book   appeared. 
"  What  will  Huxley  say  ?  "  is  the  burden  of  Darwin's 

1  An  excellent  abstract  of  the  joint  Memoir  is  given  by  Professor 
E.  B.  Poulton  in  his  Charles  Darwin,  pp.  65-78. 

2 1.   159.  3  Scient.  Memoirs,  ii.  p.  90. 


100  HUXLEY 

letters.  "  I  am  intensely  curious  to  hear  Huxley's 
opinion  of  my  book."  "  If  I  can  convert  Huxley  I 
shall  be  content."  "I  long  to  hear  what  Huxley 
thinks."  l  Ten  days  after  this,  in  a  letter  dated  23d 
November,  1859,  Huxley,  to  whom  an  advance  copy 
had  been  sent,  tells  Darwin  that  he  is  "  prepared  to 
go  to  the  stake,  if  requisite,"  for  the  doctrine  of 
natural  selection,  and,  scenting  the  battle  from  afar, 
adds:  "I  am  sharpening  up  my  claws  and  beak  in 
readiness  for  defense  of  the  4  noble  book.'  "  Darwin 
was  made  happy.  He  had  converted  the  chief  of 
doubters,  to  whom  he  replied :  "  Like  a  good 
Catholic  who  has  received  extreme  unction,  I  can 
now  sing  4Nunc  dimitlis.'  I  should  have  been  more 
than  contented  with  one  quarter  of  what  you  have 
said."2 

Huxley  was  satisfied  that  Darwin  "  had  demon- 
strated a  true  cause  for  the  production  of  species." 
In  a  course  of  lectures  to  working  men  delivered  in 
1863,  he  said : 

I  really  believe  that  the  alternative  is  either  Dar- 
winism or  nothing,  for  I  do  not  know  of  any  rational 
conception  or  theory  of  the  organic  universe  which 
has  any  scientific  position  at  all  beside  Mr.  Darwin's. 

1  Life  and  Letters,  ii.  pp.  176,  221,  225.  What  Huxley  did 
think,  after  mastering  the  central  idea  of  the  book,  was,  "How 
extremely  stupid  not  to  have  thought  of  that !  " — /<*.,  p.  197. 

»  /£.,  p.  232. 


THE    INTERPRETER  IOI 

.     .     .     Whatever  may  be  the  objections  to  his  views, 
certainly  all  other  theories  are  absolutely  out  of  court.1 

But  doubting,  as  was  his  wont,  "  whatever  could 
be  doubted,"  he  was  not  satisfied  that  the  evidence 
was  in  all  respects  complete.  He  held  that  full  proof 
would  be  obtained  only  when  experiments  in  selective 
breeding  from  a  common  stock  resulted  in  the  pro- 
duction of  varieties  more  or  less  infertile  with  one 
another.  In  his  article  on  the  "  Origin  of  Species  " 
in  the  Westminster  Review  of  April,  1860,  he  says:  — 

After  much  consideration,  and  with  assuredly  no 
bias  against  Mr.  Darwin's  views,  it  is  our  clear  con- 
viction that,  as  the  evidence  stands,  it  is  not  absolutely 
proven  that  a  group  of  animals,  having  all  the  char- 
acters exhibited  by  species  in  nature,  has  ever  been 
originated  by  selection,  whether  artificial  or  natural. 
Groups  having  the  morphological  character  of  species 
— distinct  and  permanent  races,  in  fact — have  been  so 
produced  over  and  over  again ;  but  there  is  no  posi- 
tive evidence  at  present  that  any  group  of  animals 
has,  by  variation  and  selective  breeding,  given  rise  to 
another  group  which  was  even  in  the  least  degree  in- 
fertile with  the  first.  Mr.  Darwin  is  perfectly  aware 
of  this  weak  point,  and  brings  forward  a  number  of 
ingenious  and  important  arguments  to  diminish  the 
force  of  the  objection.  We  admit  the  value  of  these 
arguments  to  their  fullest  extent — nay,  we  will  go  so 
far  as  to  express  our  belief  that  experiments  conducted 
by  a  skilful  physiologist  ("  instead  of  by  a  mere  breeder," 
he  adds  in  a  letter  to  Darwin2),  would  very  probably 
obtain  the  desired  production  of  mutually  more  or 

1  Coll.  Essays,  ii.  p.  467.  2  I.   195  ;  and  cf.  ib.,  239. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORN& 
SANXA 


102  HUXLEY 

less  infertile  breeds  from  a  common  stock  in  a  com- 
paratively few  years.  But  still,  as  the  case  stands  at 
present,  this  "  little  rift  within  the  lute  "  is  not  to  be 
disguised  or  overlooked.1 

Twenty-seven  years  afterwards,  Huxley  referred  to 
the  insecurity  of  the  logical  foundation  as  remaining 
in  the  absence  of  experiments  with  the  results  de- 
manded; nevertheless,  in  the  last  speech  which  he 
delivered  in  public,  a  few  months  before  his  death,  he 
expressed  his  unshaken  belief  in  the  theory 

propounded  by  Mr.  Darwin  thirty-four  years  ago  as 
the  only  hypothesis  at  present  put  before  us  which 
has  a  sound  scientific  foundation.2 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  quote  some  suggestive 
observations  on  Huxley's  contention  from  an  article 
on  the  Life  and  Letters  in  a  recent  number  of  his 
whilom  antagonist,  but  now  appreciative,  if  not 
whole-hearted,  disciple,  the  Quarterly  Review  : — 

It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  the  mutual  sterility 
of  natural  species  as  an  incidental  result  of  their 
separation  for  an  immense  period  of  time.  In  the 
process  of  fertilisation  a  portion  of  a  single  cell- 
nucleus  from  one  individual  fuses  with  a  portion  from 
another  individual,  the  two  combining  to  form  the 
complete  nucleus  of  the  first  cell  of  the  offspring, 
from  which  all  the  countless  cells  of  the  future  in- 
dividual will  arise  by  division.  Each  part-nucleus 
contains  the  whole  of  the  hereditary  qualities  re- 

i  Cell.  Essays,  ii.  p.  75.  »  1 1.  389. 


THE    INTERPRETER  $03 

ceived  from  and  through  its  respective  parent,  and 
must  therefore  be  of  inconceivable  complexity.  We 
can  only  speak  in  generalities  of  processes  of  which 
so  little  is  known  j  but  we  cannot  be  wrong  in  as- 
suming that  sterility  is  sometimes  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  complexity  of  the  one  part-nucleus  fails  in  some 
way  to  suit  the  complexity  of  the  other. 
The  length  of  time  required  for  mutual  sterility  to  be 
complete  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  entirely 
distinct,  but  closely  related,  species  are  still  partially 
fertile  in  that  they  can  produce  hybrid  offspring. 
When  our  domestic  breeds  of  pigeons  have  been  en- 
tirely prevented  from  interbreeding  for  some  immense 
period  of  time,  we  may  expect  that  they  too  will  only 
produce  sterile  hybrids,  and,  later  still,  not  even  these. 
At  present  the  majority  of  these  breeds  are  not  every- 
where rigidly  prevented  from  interbreeding,  so  that  an 
approximation  to  natural  species-formation  has  not 
even  begun.  There  are  others,  however,  such  as  the 
most  widely  different  breeds  of  dogs,  in  which  the  di- 
vergence in  size  is  so  extreme  that  interbreeding  has 
probably  been  a  mechanical  impossibility  for  some 
considerable  time.1 

Huxley's  letters  express  dissent  from  the  so-called 
"  Neo-Lamarckian "  school,  represented  by  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer,  which  contends  that  the  use  and 
disuse  of  organs,  together  with  the  action  of  sur- 
roundings, produce  modifications  of  structure  which 
are  transmitted  to  offspring.  There  are  no  specific 
references  to  Professor  Weismann's  Essays  in  Heredity 
(1883),  in  which,  representing  the  so-called  "  Neo- 
Darwinian "  school,  natural  selection,  acting  on 

January,  1901,  pp.  269,  271. 


104  HUXLEY 

favourable  variations,  is  held  to  be  all-sufficient  for 
the  production  of  new  species  ;  but,  in  June,  1886, 
Huxley  wrote  to  Mr.  Spencer  as  follows : — 

Mind,  I  have  no  a  priori  objection  to  the  transmis- 
sion of  functional  modifications  whatever.  In  fact, 
as  I  told  you,  I  should  rather  like  it  to  be  true. 

But  I  argued  against  the  assumption  (with  Dar- 
win, as  I  do  with  you)  of  the  operation  of  a  factor 
which,  if  you  will  forgive  me  for  saying  so,  seems  as 
far  off  support  by  trustworthy  evidence  now  as  ever 
it  was.1 

To  Mr.  Platt  Ball  he  wrote  in  1890:— 

I  absolutely  disbelieve  in  use-inheritance  as  the 
evidence  stands.  Spencer  is  bound  to  it  a  priori — his 
psychology  goes  to  pieces  without  it.2 

Huxley's  researches  in  palaeontology  and  embry- 
ology strengthened  'his  conviction  that  "  if  all  the 
conceptions  promulgated  in  the  Origin  of  Species  which 
are  peculiarly  Darwinian  were  swept  away,  the  theory 
of  evolution  of  plants  and  animals  would  not  be  in 
the  slightest  degree  shaken." s  For  him  the  im- 
portance of  that  book  lay  in  its  influence  beyond  the 
limits  of  its  theory,  which  dealt  only  with  living 
things.  This  is  put  with  his  usual  clearness  and 
vigour  in  his  chapter  on  its  reception  in  Darwin's 
Life  and  Letters,  and  explains  his  place  as  foremost 
champion : — 

>II.  133.  «II.  268.  »  Nature,  1st  Nov.,  1894. 


THE    INTERPRETER  IO5 

The  oldest  of  all  philosophies  was  bound  hand 
and  foot,  and  cast  into  utter  darkness,  during  the 
millennium  of  theological  scholasticism.  But  Dar- 
win poured  new  life-blood  into  the  ancient  frame ; 
the  bonds  burst,  and  the  revivified  thought  of  ancient 
Greece  has  proved  itself  to  be  a  more  adequate  ex- 
pression of  the  universal  order  of  things  than  any  of 
the  schemes  which  have  been  accepted  by  the  credu- 
lity, and  welcomed  by  the  superstition,  of  seventy  later 
generations  of  men. 

To  any  one  who  studies  the  signs  of  the  times,  the 
emergence  of  the  philosophy  of  Evolution,  in  the  at- 
titude of  claimant  to  the  throne  of  the  world  of 
thought,  from  the  limbo  of  hatred,  and,  as  many 
hoped,  forgotten  things,  is  the  most  portentous  event 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  the  most  effective 
weapons  of  the  modern  champions  of  Evolution 
were  fabricated  by  Darwin  ;  and  the  Origin  of  Species 
has  enlisted  a  formidable  body  of  combatants,  trained 
in  the  severe  school  of  Physical  Science,  whose  ears 
might  have  long  remained  deaf  to  the  speculations  of 
a  priori  philosophers.1 

In  this  same  chapter  Huxley  makes  a  short  refer- 
ence, as  to  a  storm  whose  tumult  has  long  been 
stilled,  leaving  only  a  ground-swell,  to  the  "  years 
which  had  to  pass  away  before  misrepresentation, 
ridicule,  and  denunciation  ceased  to  be  the  most 
notable  constituents  of  the  majority  of  the  multi- 
tudinous criticisms  of  the  Origin  of  Species"  What 
he  touches  upon  with  brevity  need  not  be  amplified 

'II.  p.  1 80;  and  cf.  Coll.  Essays,  i.  p.  43;  ix.  p.  104.  "Clas- 
sical history  is  a  part  of  modern  history :  it  is  medieval  history 
which  is  ancient." — Bagehot's  Physics  and  Politics,  p.  169. 


106  HUXLEY 

here.  It  would  fail  to  interest  an  age  which,  lightly 
valuing  the  intellectual  freedom  won  for  it,  but  not 
by  it,  is  without  enthusiasm,  without  aspiration,  save 
as  these  are  moved  by  ignoble  lust  of  empire  or  by 
enervating  craving  after  luxury ;  an  age  in  which 
44  the  coarsest  political  standard  is  undoubtingly  and 
finally  applied  over  the  whole  realm  of  human 
thought,  ...  in  which  the  souls  of  men  have 
become  void,  while  into  the  void  have  entered  in 
triumph  the  seven  devils  of  Secularity."  l 

But  the  remnant  who  care  to  know  through  what 
tribulation  the  fighters  in  the  sixties  entered  the  king- 
dom of  the  free  may  be  told  that  the  battle  was  the 
fiercer  by  reason  of  divisions  in  the  camp  of  science, 
whereas  the  theologians  were  a  solid  phalanx.  True 
it  is  that  one  of  the  earliest  converts  to  Darwinism 
was  a  clerical  ornithologist,  Canon  Tristram  (still 
with  us),  who  applied  the  theory  of  natural  selection 
to  explanation  of  the  colours  of  birds  of  the  Sahara. 
Charles  Kingsley,  too,  was  sympathetic;  but  these 
were  as  men  "born  out  of  due  time."  Owen's 
malignant  attitude  has  had  reference;  Sir  John 
Herschel  said  that  natural  selection  was  "  the  law  of 
higgledy-piggledy,"  the  exact  meaning  of  which, 
Darwin  confessed,  puzzled  him,  as  well  it  might; 
Adam  Sedgwick  read  parts  of  the  book  with  "  abso- 
1  On  Compromise,  by  John  Morley,  pp.  14,  37. 


THE    INTERPRETER  IOJ 

lute  sorrow,  as  false  and  grievously  mischievous." 
But  he  hoped  to  meet  Darwin  "  in  heaven." 
Whewell's  opposition  took  the  form  of  refusing  the 
Origin  of  Species  a  place  in  the  library  of  Trinity 
College  ;  Lyell  at  first,  and  Carpenter,  with  others, 
throughout,  accepted  with  reservations;  while  the 
tone  of  the  more  intellectual  organs  was  reflected  in 
the  Atbenceum,  for  long  years  an  anti-Darwinian 
journal.  Touching  on  the  theological  issues  in- 
volved, it  committed  Darwin  "  to  the  tender  mercies 
of  the  Divinity  Hall,  the  College,  the  Lecture-room, 
and  the  Museum." 

On  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  the  drum  ecclesiastic 
was  beaten  in  pulpits  where,  needless  to  say, 
vituperative  rhetoric  did  duty  for  argument ;  preachers 
in  cathedrals  and  little  Bethels  were  at  one  in  con- 
demnation of  a  "  brutal  philosophy  "  whose  success 
meant  the  denial  of  Scripture  and  the  dethronement 
of  God ;  while  Episcopacy  voiced  itself  through  the 
Bishop  of  Oxford's  philippic  in  the  Quarterly  Review, 
which,  albeit  inspired  by  Owen,  exhibited  "  pre- 
posterous incapacity "  in  dealing  with  elementary 
biology. 

There  was  only  one  man  qualified  to  take  up  the 
gauntlet.  Huxley's  prominence  as  the  most  capable 
interpreter  and  best-equipped  defender  of  the 
Darwinian  theory  dates  from  the  British  Association 


1O8  HUXLEY 

Meeting  of  1860.  Apropos  of  some  friction  with 
Owen  in  1852,  he  said,  in  a  letter  to  his  sister,  that 
he  was  "  quite  ready  to  fight  half-a-dozen  dragons." 
He  was  then  writing  for  his  living,  and,  referring  to 
his  jealous  rival's  "  bitter  pen,"  he  adds,  "  I  flatter 
myself  that,  on  occasion,  I  can  match  him  in  that 
department. '  Eight  years  after,  the  serious  issues 
between  himself  and  the  anti-Darwinians,  added  to 
his  eagerness  for  the  fray  unguibus  et  rostra.  This 
was  gratified  by  the  opportunity  for  exercise  of  a  pen 
never  dipped  in  malice.  By  a  happy  chance  the 
columns  of  the  Times  were  opened  to  him  for  a 
review  of  the  Origin  of  Species.  The  book  had  been 
sent  to  Mr.  Lucas,  a  member  of  the  staff,  who  "  was 
as  innocent  of  any  knowledge  of  science  as  a  babe," 
and  who,  at  the  suggestion  of  a  friend,  passed-on  the 
copy  to  Huxley,  stipulating  only  that  he  should  pref- 
ace the  article  with  a  few  sentences.  The  review 
appeared  on  26th  December,  1859,  an^  thereby 
Huxley  secured  the  aid  of  the  then  influential  paper 
in  "  giving  the  book  a  fair  start  with  the  multitudi- 
nous readers  of  the  leading  journal  " — "  the  educated 
mob  who  derive  their  ideas  from  the  Times"  as  he 
said  in  a  letter  to  Hooker.2  The  review  is  reprinted 
in  the  second  volume  of  Collected  Essays,  in  which, 
under  the  title  "  Darwiniana,"  are  included  allied 
'I-  98.  *i.  177. 


THE    INTERPRETER  lOQ 

articles  expository  of  the  doctrine  of  natural  selec- 
tion, which  had  appeared  in  serials  or  were  based 
upon  popular  lectures.  They  were  needed,  since 
u  exposition  was  not  Darwin's  forte,  and  his  English 
is  sometimes  wonderful."  l 

The  Origin  of  Species  is  not  easy  reading.  Thirty 
years  after  its  publication,  when  Huxley,  of  all  men, 
might  have  been  expected  to  have  mastered  it  from 
title  to  colophon,  he  said  in  a  letter  to  Hooker, "  It  is 
one  of  the  hardest  books  to  understand  thoroughly 
that  I  know  of." 2 

Darwin,  recluse  by  temperament  and  frail  health, 
content,  in  the  quiet  of  his  Kentish  home,  to  continue 
his  work  of  collecting  and  verifying,  was  no  con- 
troversialist. Hence  the  preaching  of  the  new  doc- 
trine and  the  fighting  for  it  fell  to  "  my  general 
agent," 3  as  he  called  Huxley ;  to  "  Darwin's  bull- 
dog," as  Huxley  called  himself.4  Not  returning  rail- 
ing for  railing,  but  fact-supported  argument  for 
epithet ;  albeit  sometimes  answering  "  a  fool  accord- 
ing to  his  folly,"  Huxley  made  it  his  chief  business  to 
enlarge  to  the  full  the  hint  which,  at  the  end  of  the 
Origin  of  Species,  Darwin  threw  out  in  a  brief  sen- 
tence :  "  Much  light  will  be  thrown  on  the  origin  of 
man  and  his  history."  Darwin's  desire  not  to  unduly 

'II.  190-  «II.  192. 

'Darwin's  Life  and  Letters,  ii.  p.  251.  *  I.  363. 


HO  HUXLEY 

prejudice  the  minds  of  readers  to  whom  his  theory 
was  wholly  new  by  too  plain  an  indication  of  its 
bearing,  and  his  anxiety  to  advance  no  statement  with- 
out complete  investment  of  fact,  explain  his  reticence. 
But  it  needed  no  great  acuteness  on  the  part  of  a 
critical  reader  to  see  that  the  subject  could  not  be 
thus  selvedged.  The  Descent  of  Man  was  the  logical 
supplement  to  the  Origin  of  Species ;  but  it  was  not 
published  until  1871.  Explaining  in  1894  the  posi- 
tion which  he  took  up  in  1860,  Huxley  says: — 

Among  the  many  problems  which  came  under  my 
consideration,  the  position  of  the  human  species  in 
zoological  classification  was  one  of  the  most  serious. 
Indeed,  at  that  time  it  was  a  burning  question,  in  the 
sense  that  those  who  touched  it  were  almost  certain 
to  burn  their  fingers  severely.  .  .  .  Even  among 
those  who  considered  man  from  the  point  of  view, 
not  of  vulgar  prejudice,  but  of  science,  opinions  lay 
poles  asunder.  Linnaeus  had  taken  one  view,  Cuvier 
another ;  and  among  my  senior  contemporaries,  men 
like  Lyell,  regarded  by  many  as  revolutionaries  of  the 
deepest  dye,  were  strongly  opposed  to  anything  which 
tended  to  break  down  the  barrier  between  man  and 
the  rest  of  the  animal  world. 

Huxley  then  refers  to  his  own  hesitation  upon  the 
matter,  until  Owen's  assertion  as  to  certain  funda- 
mental differences  of  structure  in  the  brain  of  man 
and  ape '  led  him  to  reinvestigate  the  subject,  with 
the  result  that  he  was  satisfied  as  to  the  structures  in 
1  Ante,  p.  1 8. 


THE    INTERPRETER  III 

question  not  being  peculiar  to  man,  "  but  shared  by 
him  with  all  the  higher,  and  many  of  the  lower  apes." 
Matters  were   at  this   point  when  the    Origin  of 
Species  appeared. 

The  weighty  sentence,  "  Light  will  be  thrown  on 
the  origin  of  man  and  his  history,"  was  not  only  in 
full  harmony  with  the  conclusions  at  which  I  had  ar- 
rived, but  was  strongly  supported  by  them.  And  in- 
asmuch as  Development  and  Vertebrate  Anatomy 
were  not  among  Mr.  Darwin's  many  specialities,  it 
appeared  to  me  that  I  should  not  be  intruding  on  the 
ground  he  had  made  his  own  if  I  discussed  this  part 
of  the  general  question.  In  fact,  I  thought  that  I 
might  probably  serve  the  cause  of  Evolution  by  doing 


In  the  spring  of  1861  he  gave  a  course  of  weekly 
lectures  to  working  men,  "  On  the  Relation  of  Man 
to  the  rest  of  the  Animal  Kingdom."  This  was  fol- 
lowed by  an  invitation  from  the  Philosophical  In- 
stitution of  Edinburgh  to  deliver  two  lectures  upon 
the  same  subject.  As  "  it  was  only  a  few  years  since 
that  the  electors  to  the  Chair  of  Natural  History  in  a 
famous  northern  university  had  refused  to  invite  a 
very  distinguished  man  to  occupy  it  because  he  advo- 
cated the  doctrine  of  the  diversity  of  species  of  man- 
kind," Huxley  was  not  prepared  for  the  applause 
with  which  the  Edinburgh  audience  greeted  the  state- 
ment that  he  entertained  "  no  doubt  of  the  origin  of 
UI.  178. 


112  HUXLEY 

man  from  the  same  stock  as  the  apes."  But  there 
were  shouts  of  dissent  outside  the  lecture  hall.  The 
local  press  was  furious  at  the  reception  accorded  to 
that  "  anti-scriptural  and  most  debasing  theory,  .  .  . 
standing  in  blasphemous  contradiction  to  Biblical  nar- 
rative and  doctrine."  There  should  have  been  deep 
resentment  at  this  "  foul  outrage  committed  upon 
them  individually  and  upon  the  whole  species  as 
4  made  in  the  likeness  of  God,'  by  deserting  the  hall 
in  a  body,  or  using  some  more  emphatic  form  of 
protest  against  the  corruption  of  youth  by  the  vilest 
and  beastliest  paradox  ever  vented  in  ancient  or 
modern  times  amongst  Pagans  or  Christians."  l  Thus 
wrote  the  Witness,  invective,  as  usual,  doing  duty  for 
argument;  while  the  Scotsman,  as  Huxley  told  Dar- 
win, was  "more  scurrilously  personal,  and  more 
foolish." 

The  two  sets  of  lectures  formed  the  basis  of  Evi- 
dence as  to  Man's  Place  in  Nature,  published  in  1863. 
The  third  section  of  the  book  dealt  with  the  question 
of  fossil  human  remains,  concerning  which  Lyell  had 
asked  for  information  when  preparing  his  Antiquity  of 
Man.  Well  anathematised  by  the  reviewers,  the 
"old  stupid  Athen&um"  as  Darwin  called  it,  telling 
its  readers  that  "  LyelPs  object  is  to  make  man  old, 
Huxley's  to  degrade  him,"  the  book  had  an  imme- 
•I.  194- 


THE    INTERPRETER  113 

diate  success.  It  remains  a  classic  on  the  subject, 
because,  as  Mr.  Chalmers  Mitchell  remarks,  "the  ad- 
vance of  knowledge  has  only  added  to  the  details  of 
the  argument ;  it  has  not  made  any  reconstruction  of 
it  necessary."  l 

An  outline  of  the  chapter  describing  the  manlike 
apes,  and  explaining  the  likenesses  and  differences  be- 
tween them  and  man,  may  help  to  make  clear  how 
inevitable  was  a  controversy  in  which  Huxley  took 
the  chief  part. 

It  is  obvious  that,  in  any  classification  of  animals 
founded  on  external  resemblances,  both  empiric  and  ex- 
pert would  agree  in  grouping  the  monkeys,  those 
"  blurred  copies,"  often  caricatures,  of  man,  with  him. 
And  "  the  great  lawgiver  of  systematic  zoology," 
Linnaeus,  places  man  and  the  four  anthropoid  or  man- 
like apes — the  chimpanzee,  gorilla,  orang-utan,  and 
gibbon — at  the  head  of  the  Primates,  the  name  given 
by  him  to  the  highest  members  of  the  Vertebrate 
class.  The  chimpanzee  and  gorilla  are  sometimes 
grouped  as  of  the  same  genus,  but  the  orang-utan  and 
gibbon  are  undoubtedly  distinct  genera.  They  are 
found  only  in  the  old  world — the  chimpanzee  and 
gorilla  inhabiting  tropical  Africa,  and  the  orang-utan 
and  gibbon  southeastern  Asia  and  the  Malay  Archi- 
pelago. They  are  tailless,  semi-erect,  long-armed, 

1  Thomas  Henry  Huxley,  p.  185. 


114  HUXLEY 

the  aperture  of  the  nostrils  pointing  downwards, 
whence  the  term  catarrhine ;  they  are  arboreal  in  their 
habits,  and,  mainly,  vegetarians. 

The  Chimpanzee  is  about  five  feet  in  height,  nearly 
black,  like  the  negro,  has  arms  which  reach  below  the 
knee,  and  a  slightly  curved  back-bone.  (The  S-like 
shape  of  man's  back-bone  is  one  of  the  cooperating 
causes  of  his  erect  position,  stability  being  thereby 
given  to  the  structure,  so  that  nine  times  as  great  a 
vertical  force  is  required  to  bend  it  as  if  it  had  been 
straight.  The  back-bone  of  the  savage  is  less  curved 
than  that  of  civilised  man.)  The  chimpanzee  has 
one  pair  of  ribs  more  than  man.  The  feet  are  flat- 
soled,  and  shorter  than  the  hands,  and  have  an  oppo- 
sable  toe,  which,  in  all  the  anthropoids,  acts  as  a 
thumb,  the  feet  being  used  for  climbing  and  grasping. 
The  fingers  of  the  hand  are  long  and  powerful,  but 
the  thumb  is  smaller  than  that  of  a  man,  with  the 
lines  and  furrows  on  whose  hand  those  on  the  hand 
of  the  ape  correspond.  The  impostors  who  ply  the 
trade  of  palmistry  may  note  this  fact,  either  for  the 
purpose  of  reading  the  fate  and  fortune  of  the  an- 
thropoids, or,  what  would  be  equally  reasonable  in  the 
case  of  their  dupes,  determining  the  future  of  these 
from  the  creases  in  their  trousers.  The  skull  of  the 
chimpanzee  approximates  nearest  among  the  anthro- 
poids to  man's,  and  the  brain,  which  is  half  the  size 


THE    INTERPRETER  115 

of  his,  has  the  same  ridges  or  convolutions,  although, 
in  proportion,  these  are  simpler  and  larger.  The 
number  of  teeth  in  man  and  the  manlike  apes  is  the 
same,  but  in  the  latter  the  canines  are  longer.  The 
chimpanzee  makes  its  nest  in  trees,  swinging  from 
branch  to  branch  to  a  great  distance,  and  leaping  with 
astonishing  agility.  "  It  is  not  unusual  to  see  the  l  old 
folks '  sitting  under  a  tree  regaling  themselves  with 
fruit  and  friendly  chat,  while  their  t  children  '  are 
leaping  around  them,  and  swinging  from  tree  to  tree 
with  boisterous  merriment."  1 

The  Gorilla  is  the  largest  and  most  savage  of  the 
four.  It  is  about  five  feet  and  a  half  in  height ;  its 
body  is  massive  and  powerful,  and  covered  with  coarse 
black  hair.  The  arms  reach  to  the  middle  of  the  leg, 
and,  of  all  the  anthropoids,  the  feet  and  hands  most 
approximate  to  those  of  man.  It  has  very  long 
canine  teeth,  although  these  are  relatively  smaller  than 
in  the  primitive  mammal.  Its  ponderous  body  renders 
it  less  agile  for  arboreal  life,  hence  it  dwells  chiefly  on 
the  ground,  resting  its  arms  on  the  knuckles  of  the 
hands  as  it  shambles  along  in  a  half-swinging  motion. 
The  gorillas  live  in  bands,  but  are  not  so  numerous 
as  the  chimpanzees :  the  females  generally  exceed  the 
males  in  number.  "  My  informants  all  agree  in  the 
assertion  that  but  one  adult  male  is  seen  in  a  band ; 

1  Dr.  Savage,  quoted  in  Man's  Place  in  Nature,  p.  43  (1863). 


II 6  HUXLEY 

that  when  the  young  males  grow  up  a  contest  takes 
place  for  mastery,  and  the  strongest,  by  killing  and 
driving  out  the  others,  establishes  himself  as  the  head 
of  the  community." 1 

The  Orang-utan  is  about  four  feet  in  height.  Its 
body  is  bulky  and  powerful,  and  reddish-brown  in 
colour,  like  that  of  the  Malay  native.  The  back-bone 
is  slightly  curved  ;  the  feet  are  longer  than  the  hands, 
and  the  arms  reach  to  the  ankles.  Its  brain  approxi- 
mates nearest  of  all  the  anthropoids  to  that  of  man  in 
structure  and  appearance.  It  is  a  slow  and  cautious 
climber,  but  on  all-fours  it  can,  for  a  time,  outstrip  a 
man  in  running.  Like  the  gorilla,  it  defends  itself 
with  its  hands.  It  is  wholly  arboreal,  making  nests 
for  itself  and  family,  the  young  remaining  for  some 
time  under  the  mother's  protection.  In  reading  Dr. 
Alfred  Russel  Wallace's  account  of  a  baby  orang- 
utan, the  late  John  Fiske  was  struck  by  the  fact  that 
it  had  an  infancy  which  is  a  great  deal  longer  than 
that  of  some  lower  mammals,  but  which  was  very 
brief  compared  with  that  of  the  period  of  human  in- 
fancy. Twenty-five  centuries  ago  Anaximander  re- 
marked that  "  while  other  animals  quickly  find  food 
for  themselves,  man  alone  requires  a  prolonged  period 
of  suckling."  Looking  at  this  fact  under  the  light  of 
evolution,  the  theory  suggested  itself  to  Mr.  Fiske 
1  Alan's  Plate  in  Nature,  p.  49. 


THE    INTERPRETER  1IJ 

that  the  comparatively  long  duration  of  human  in- 
fancy is  a  condition  of  human  intelligence,  the  period, 
moreover,  being  longer  in  the  civilised  man  than  in 
the  savage.  While  in  all  other  animals,  in  descend- 
ing scale,  little  remains  to  be  developed  after  birth,  in 
man  it  is  precisely  the  reverse.  The  period  during 
which  he  remains  helpless  or  dependent  upon  others 
fills  a  large  portion  of  his  life.  Puppies,  kittens,  and 
colts  are  born  fully  equipped  with  all  the  nervous  ap- 
paratus by  which  they  can  shift  for  themselves :  they 
have  nothing  to  learn  from,  or  to  add  to,  the  stock  of 
inherited  qualities.  One  generation  succeeds  another 
in  unprogressive  monotony.  Whereas,  in  man,  the 
period  during  which  the  nerve-connections  and  their 
correlative  associations  necessary  for  self-maintenance 
are  being  formed  lengthens  as  intelligence  becomes 
more  complex.  From  this  much  of  great  import  fol- 
lows. For  it  is  this  long,  helpless  period  of  human 
infancy,  involving  dependence  on  the  parents,  which 
begets  the  solicitude,  the  sympathy,  and  the  self-de- 
nial of  which  the  strands  of  family  life  are  woven. 
Carried  further,  there  is  the  development  of  those  re- 
gardful feelings  for  others,  and  of  that  self-restraint, 
which  results  in  the  extension  of  the  family  unit  to 
the  social  unit,  all  which  lie  at  the  base  of  ethics. 

The   Gibbon,  smallest  and  gentlest  of  the  four,  is 
about  three  feet  in  height.     Its  arms  touch  the  ground 


Il8  HUXLEY 

when  it  is  erect ;  the  soles  of  the  feet  turn  inward,  a 
feature  explained  by  their  arboreal  functions,  and  con- 
cerning which  Professor  Osborn  reports  a  droll  re- 
mark of  Huxley's.  He  said,  u  When  a  fond  mother 
calls  upon  me  to  admire  her  baby,  I  never  fail  to  re- 
spond ;  and  while  cooing  appropriately,  I  take  ad- 
vantage of  any  opportunity  to  gently  ascertain 
whether  the  soles  of  its  feet  turn  in,  and  tend  to  sup- 
port my  theory  of  arboreal  descent."  l  The  chest  of 
the  gibbon  approximates  nearest  to  that  of  man's,  and 
it  has  callosities  or  sitting-pads  on  the  buttocks.  It 
can  run  for  some  distance  on  its  feet,  but  it  lives  in 
tall  trees,  and  is  a  rapid  leaper,  springing  as  much  as 
forty  feet  from  tree  to  tree.  Like  the  chimpanzee,  it 
fights  with  its  teeth. 

In  contrast  and  resemblance  to  these  four  anthro- 
poid apes  is  man^  "  erect  and  featherless  biped,"  be- 
tween whom  and  his  semi-erect  and  hairy  congeners 
there  is  no  fundamental  differences  in  structure,  the 
variations  being  no  greater  than  in  any  other  allied 
group  of  animals.  It  is  true  that  no  anatomist  could 
mistake  the  bones  of  a  man  for  those  of  a  gorilla  ; 
but  the  differences  between  the  one  and  the  other  are 
less  than  those  between  a  gorilla  and  the  lowest  Pri- 
mates, say,  a  lemur.  Like  all  other  animals,  the  Pri- 
mates originate  from  a  fertilised  egg-cell ;  the  primor- 
1 II.  424- 


THE    INTERPRETER  IIQ 

dial  germ  of  a  man,  a  dog,  a  bird,  a  fish,  a  beetle,  a 
snail,  and  a  polyp  being  in  no  essentially  structural 
respects  distinguishable.  Like  all  other  vertebrates, 
the  Primates  pass  through  a  period  of  embryonic  de- 
velopment, in  which  the  resemblances  to  one  another 
are  so  closely  the  same  both  in  outward  and  inward 
form  and  essentials  of  structure 

that  the  differences  between  them  are  inconsiderable, 
while,  in  their  subsequent  course,  they  diverge  more 
and  more  widely  from  one  another.  And  it  is  a  gen- 
eral law,  that  the  more  closely  any  animals  resemble 
one  another  in  adult  structure,  the  longer  and  the 
more  intimately  do  their  embryos  resemble  one  an- 
other ;  so  that,  for  example,  the  embryos  of  a  Snake 
and  of  a  Lizard  remain  like  one  another  longer  than 
do  those  of  a  Snake  and  of  a  Bird  ;  and  the  embryos 
of  a  Dog  and  of  a  Cat  remain  like  one  another  for  a 
far  longer  period  than  do  those  of  a  Dog  and  of  a 
Bird,  or  of  a  Dog  and  an  Opossum,  or  even  than  those 
of  a  Dog  and  a  Monkey. 

Thus  the  study  of  development  affords  a  clear  test 
of  closeness  of  structural  affinity,  and  one  turns  with 
impatience  to  inquire  what  results  are  yielded  by  the 
study  of  the  development  of  Man.  Is  he  something 
apart  ?  Does  he  originate  in  a  totally  different  way 
from  Dog,  Bird,  Frog,  and  Fish,  thus  justifying  those 
who  assert  him  to  have  no  place  in  nature  and  no  real 
affinity  with  the  lower  world  of  animal  life  ?  Or 
does  he  originate  in  a  similar  germ,  pass  through  the 
same  slow  and  gradually  progressive  modification — 
depend  upon  the  same  contrivances  for  protection  and 
nutrition,  and  finally  enter  the  world  by  the  help  of  the 
same  mechanism  ?  The  reply  is  not  doubtful  for  a 
moment,  and  has  not  been  doubtful  any  time  these 


120  HUXLEY 

thirty  years.  Without  question,  the  mode  of  origin 
and  the  early  stages  of  the  development  of  man  are 
identical  with  those  of  the  animals  immediately  below 
him  in  the  scale :  without  a  doubt,  in  these  respects, 
he  is  far  nearer  the  Apes  than  the  Apes  are  to  the 


Identical  in  the  physical  processes  by  which  he 
originates — identical  in  the  early  stages  of  his  forma- 
tion— identical  in  the  mode  of  his  nutrition,  before 
and  after  birth,  with  the  animals  which  lie  immedi- 
ately below  him  in  the  scale — Man,  if  his  adult  and 
perfect  structure  be  compared  with  theirs,  exhibits,  as 
might  be  expected,  a  marvellous  likeness  of  organ- 
isation. He  resembles  them  as  they  resemble  one 
another — he  differs  from  them  as  they  differ  from  one 
another.  And  though  these  differences  and  resem- 
blances cannot  be  weighed  and  measured,  their  value 
may  be  readily  estimated,  the  scale  or  standard  of 
judgment,  touching  that  value,  being  afforded  and  ex- 
pressed by  the  system  of  classification  of  animals  now 
current  among  zoologists.1 

In  his  general  organisation  man  is  most  nearly 
allied  to  the  Chimpanzee  or  the  Gorilla  (in  mental 
capacity  the  Chimpanzee  appears  to  be  the  nearer), 
and  for  the  purposes  of  comparison,  Huxley  chose 
the  Gorilla  as  "  a  brute  now  so  celebrated  in  prose 
and  verse  "  that  "  all  must  have  formed  some  concep- 
tion of  his  appearance."  In  dealing  with  the  most 
important  points  of  difference  between  Man  and 
Gorilla,  he  also  contrasted  the  differences  which 
separate  the  Gorilla  from  other  Primates. 
1  Man's  Place  in  Nature,  pp.  67,  68. 


THE    INTERPRETER  121 

The  differences  in  the  body  and  limbs  of  Man  and 
Gorilla  at  once  strike  the  eye.  The  trunk  of  the 
latter  is  larger,  the  lower  limbs  shorter,  the  upper 
limbs  longer,  and  the  brain-case  smaller,  than  in  Man. 
In  the  "  nobler  and  more  characteristic  organ,"  the 
skull,  the  differences  are  "  immense."  The  face  of 
the  Gorilla  has  massive  jaw-bones  and  predominates 
over  the  brain-case ;  in  Man  these  proportions  are 
reversed.  The  surface  of  the  human  skull  is  com- 
paratively smooth,  the  brow  prominences  or  ridges 
project  very  little ;  in  the  Gorilla  "  vast  crests  are 
developed  upon  the  skull,  and  the  brow-ridges  over- 
hang the  cavernous  orbits  like  great  pent-houses. 
The  smallest  cranium  observed  in  any  race  of  Man 
measures  63  cubic  inches  ;  while  the  most  capacious 
Gorilla  skull  measures  not  more  than  34^  cubic 
inches.  Striking  as  are  these  differences,  their  force 
is  somewhat  impaired  in  view  of  the  differences  be- 
tween men  themselves.  The  difference  in  the  volume 
of  the  cranial  cavity  of  the  various  races  of  mankind 
is  far  greater,  absolutely,  than  that  between  the  lowest 
Man  and  the  highest  Ape,  while,. relatively,  it  is  about 
the  same.  For  the  largest  human  skull  contained  114 
cubic  inches — that  is  to  say,  had  very  nearly  double 
the  capacity  of  the  smallest — while  its  absolute  pre- 
ponderance of  51  cubic  inches  is  far  greater  than 
that  by  which  the  lowest  adult  male  human  cranium 


122  HUXLEY 

surpasses  the  largest  of  the  gorillas.  After  making 
all  due  allowance  for  difference  of  size,  the  cranial 
capacities  of  some  of  the  lower  apes  fall  nearly  as 
much,  relatively,  below  those  of  the  higher  apes  as 
the  latter  fall  below  man.  Thus,  even  in  the  im- 
portant matter  of  cranial  capacity,  Men  differ  more 
widely  from  one  another  than  they  do  from  the  Apes ; 
while  the  .lowest  Apes  differ  as  much,  in  proportion, 
from  the  highest,  as  "the  latter  does  from  Man."  l 
"  What  is  true  of  these  leading  characteristics  of  the 
skull  holds  good,  as  may  be  imagined,  of  all  minor 
features ;  so  that  for  every  difference  between  the 
Gorilla's  skull  and  the  Man's,  a  similar  constant 
difference  of  the  same  order  (that  is  to  say,  consisting 
in  excess  or  defect  of  the  same  quality)  may  be  found 
between  the  Gorilla's  skull  and  that  of  some  other 
Ape.  So  that,  for  the  skull,  no  less  than  for  the 
skeleton  in  general,  the  proposition  holds  good,  that 
the  differences  between  Man  and  the  Gorilla  are  of 
smaller  value  than  those  between  the  Gorilla  and 
some  other  Apes."  2 

Reference  has  been  made  more  than  once  to 
Owen's  assertion  that  certain  cerebral  structures — the 
posterior  lobe,  the  posterior  cornu,  and  the  hippo- 
campus minor — are  peculiar  to  man,  and  to  the  evi- 

1  Man's  Place  in  Nature,  p.  78. 
«  Man's  Place  in  Nature,  p.  8l. 


THE    INTERPRETER  123 

dence  adduced  by  Huxley,  Flower,  and  other  com- 
parative anatomists  in  disproof  of  this,  and  if  any 
justification  of  Huxley's  denial  of  Owen's  contention 
was  needed,  this  will  be  found  in  Professor  D.  J. 
Cunningham's  address  to  the  Anthropological  section 
of  the  British  Association  meeting  of  1901.  He 
says :  — 

To  us,  at  the  present  time,  it  is  difficult  to  con- 
ceive how  it  was  ever  possible  to  doubt  that  the 
occipital  lobe  was  a  distinctive  character  of  the  simian 
brain  as  well  as  of  the  human  brain,  and  yet  at  suc- 
cessive meetings  of  the  Association  (1860,  1861,  and 
1862),  a  discussion,  which  was  probably  one  of  the 
most  heated  in  the  course  of  its  history,  took  place  on 
this  very  point.  In  the  light  of  our  present  knowl- 
edge we  could  fully  understand  Professor  Huxley 
closing  the  discussion  by  stating  that  the  question  had 
"become  one  of  personal  veracity."  Indeed,  the 
occipital  lobe,  so  far  from  being  absent,  was  developed 
in  the  ape  to  a  relatively  greater  extent  than  in  man, 
and  this  constituted  one  of  the  leading  positive  dis- 
tinctive characters  of  the  simian  cerebrum. ' 

The  advance  in  degree  of  complexity  of  brain- 
structure  is  traceable  along  the  whole  series  of 
animals.  In  the  Invertebrates  the  brain  is  a  mass 
of  nerve-ganglia  near  the  head  end  of  the  body ;  in 
the  lowest  Vertebrate,  the  fish,  it  is  very  small,  com- 
pared with  the  spinal  cord ;  in  reptiles  its  mass  in- 
creases ;  and  in  birds  it  is  still  more  marked.  "  The 
1  Times,  Sept.  14,  1901. 


124  HUXLEY 

brain  of  the  lowest  Mammals,  such  as  the  duck-billed 
Platypus  and  the  Opossums  and  Kangaroos,  exhibits 
a  still  more  definite  advance  in  the  same  direction." 
A  step  higher  in  the  scale,  among  the  placental  Mam- 
mals, the  cerebral  structure  acquires  a  vast  modifica- 
tion in  the  appearance  of  a  new  structure  between 
the  two  halves  of  the  brain,  connecting  them 
together. 

In  the  lower  and  smaller  forms  of  placental 
Mammals  the  surface  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres  is 
either  smooth  or  evenly  rounded,  or  exhibits  a  very 
few  grooves,  which  are  technically  termed  "  sulci," 
separating  ridges  or  "  convolutions  "  of  the  substance 
of  the  brain,  and  the  smaller  species  of  all  orders 
tend  to  a  similar  smoothness  of  brain.  But,  in  the 
higher  orders,  and  especially  the  larger  members  of 
these  orders,  the  grooves  or  sulci  become  extremely 
numerous,  and  the  intermediate  convolutions  pro- 
portionately more  complicated  in  their  meanderings, 
until,  in  the  Elephant,  trie  Porpoise,  the  higher  Apes, 
and  Man,  the  cerebral  surface  appears  a  perfect 
labyrinth  of  tortuous  foldings.1  .  .  .  The  sur- 
face of  the  brain  of  a  monkey  exhibits  a  sort  of 
skeleton  map  of  man's,  and  in  the  manlike  apes  the 
details  become  more  and  more  filled  in  until  it  is  only 
in  minor  characters,  such  as  the  greater  excavation 
of  the  anterior  lobes,  the  constant  presence  of  fissures 
usually  absent  in  man,  and  the  different  disposition 
and  proportions  of  some  convolutions  that  the 
Chimpanzee's  or  the  Orang's  brain  can  be  structurally 
distinguished  from  Man's.2 

1  Man's  Place  in  Nature,  p.  96. 
•  Jfa»'s  Place  in  Nature,  p.  100. 


THE    INTERPRETER  125 

It  must  not  be  overlooked,  however,  that  there  is  a 
very  striking  difference  in  absolute  mass  and  weight 
between  the  lowest  human  brain  and  that  of  the 
highest  ape,  a  difference  which  is  all  the  more  re- 
markable when  we  recollect  that  a  full-grown  Gorilla  is 
probably  pretty  nearly  twice  as  heavy  as  a  Bosjes  man, 
or  as  many  a  European  woman.  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  a  healthy  human  adult  brain  ever  weighed 
less  than  31  or  32  ounces,  or  that  the  heaviest  gorilla 
brain  has  exceeded  20  ounces.  This  is  a  very  note- 
worthy circumstance,  and  doubtless  will  one  day  help 
to  furnish  an  explanation  of  the  great  gulf  which  in- 
tervenes between  the  lowest  man  and  the  highest 
ape  in  intellectual  power;  but  it  has  little  systematic 
value,  for  the  simple  reason  that,  as  may  be  concluded 
from  what  has  been  already  said  respecting  cranial 
capacity,  the  difference  in  weight  of  brain  between 
the  highest  and  the  lowest  men  is  far  greater,  both 
relatively  and  absolutely,  than  that  between  the  lowest 
man  and  the  highest  ape.  The  latter,  as  has  been 
seen,  is  represented  by,  say,  12  ounces  of  cerebral 
substance  absolutely,  or  by  32  :  20  relatively  ;  but  as 
the  largest  recorded  human  brain  weighed  between  65 
and  66  ounces,  the  former  difference  is  represented  by 
more  than  33  ounces  absolutely,  or  by  65 :  32 
relatively.  Regarded  systematically,  the  cerebral 
differences  of  man  and  apes  are  not  of  more  than 
generic  value — his  family  distinction  resting  chiefly 
on  his  dentition,  his  pelvis,  and  his  lower  limbs. 

Thus,  whatever  system  of  organs  be  studied,  the 
comparison  of  their  modifications  in  the  ape  series 
leads  to  one  and  the  same  result — that  the  structural 
differences  which  separate  Man  from  the  Gorilla  and 
the  Chimpanzee  are  not  so  great  as  those  which 
separate  the  gorilla  from  the  lower  apes.1 

1  It.,  p.  103. 


126  HUXLEY 

After  thus  showing  that  no  line  of  separation  can 
be  drawn  between  man  and  the  animals  beneath  him, 
structurally  considered,  Huxley  added  his  "  belief  that 
the  attempt  to  draw  a  psychical  distinction  is  equally 
futile,  and  that  even  the  highest  faculties  of  feeling  and 
of  intellect  begin  to  germinate  in  lower  forms  of  life."  f 

For,  in  all  the  higher  mammals,  the  structure  and 
functions  of  the  nervous  system  are,  fundamentally, 
the  same ;  in  the  minutest  microscopical  details,  the 
sense-organs,  the  nerves,  and  spinal  cord,  and  the 
brain  of  a  dog,  an  elephant,  and  an  ape  correspond  to 
the  same  organs  in  man.  If  any  part  of  the  mental 
apparatus  is  injured  or  thrown  out  of  gear,  the  result 
is  the  same  in  each  case — functional  disturbance  or 
suspense.  The  dog  and  the  horse  behave  as  we  be- 
have ;  nor  can  this  be  otherwise,  since  their  sense- 
organs  report,  of  course  with  vast  differences  of  re- 
sult, to  their  central  nervous  systems  the  messages 
that  are  transmitted  by  like  apparatus  to  ours,  and, 
within  the  limits  of  their  consciousness,  they  are  af- 
fected as  we  are  affected,  and  their  actions  are  ruled 
accordingly.  "  If  there  is  no  ground  for  believing 
that  a  dog  thinks,  neither  is  there  any  for  believing 
that  he  feels."  To  those  familiar  with  the  ways  of 
animals,  there  is  no  need  to  labour  the  point,  and, 
"in  short,"  as  Huxley  says: — 

1  Man's  Place  in  Nature,  p.  109. 


THE    INTERPRETER  127 

It  seems  hard  to  assign  any  good  reason  for  denying 
to  the  higher  animals  any  mental  state,  or  process,  in 
which  the  employment  of  the  vocal  or  visual  symbols 
of  which  language  is  composed  is  not  involved;  and 
comparative  psychology  confirms  the  position  in  rela- 
tion to  the  rest  of  the  animal  world  assigned  to  man 
by  comparative  anatomy.  As  comparative  anatomy 
is  easily  able  to  show  that,  physically,  man  is  but  the 
last  term  of  a  long  series  of  forms  which  lead,  by 
slow  gradations,  from  the  highest  mammal  to  the  al- 
most formless  speck  of  living  protoplasm  which  lies 
on  the  shadowy  boundary  between  animal  and 
vegetable  life  ;  so  comparative  psychology,  though  but 
a  young  science,  and  far  short  of  her  elder  sister's 
growth,  points  to  the  same  conclusion.1 

Nevertheless,  the  gulf  which  separates  the  man  from 
the  ape  and  from  animals  whose  intelligence  excels 
that  of  the  ape,  is  vast  and  impassable.  Its  vastness 
prevents  some  among  the  qualified  few,  and  of  course 
the  majority  of  the  prejudiced  or  ill-informed,  from 
accepting  the  fact  of  a  common  origin  of  animal  and 
human  mental  faculties.  Among  those  who  walked 
one  mile  with  Darwin,  but  refused  to  go  "  twain," 
the  most  notable  is  Dr.  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  the 
co-propounder  of  the  theory  of  natural  selection. 
He  contends  that  man's  spiritual  and  intellectual  na- 
ture "  must  have  had  another  origin,  and  for  this 
origin  we  can  only  find  adequate  cause  in  the  unseen 
universe  of  spirit."  In  like  manner,  the  late  Pro- 

M 
1  Coll.  Essays,  vi.  p.  125. 


128  HUXLEY 

fessor  St.  George  Mivart,  while  admitting  that  man's 
body  u  was  evolved  from  preexisting  material,"  as- 
serted that  "  his  soul  was  created  in  quite  a  different 
way  ...  by  the  direct  action  of  the  Almighty."  ' 
And  in  a  lecture  on  the  functions  of  the  brain,  the 
late  Sir  James  Paget  contended  that  man's  possession 
of  reason  and  conscience 

establish  between  him  and  the  brutes  a  great  differ- 
ence, not  in  degree  alone,  but  in  kind.  The  spirit 
differs  from  all  the  faculties  in  its  independence  of  our 
organisation,  for  it  is  exercised  best  in  complete 
abstraction  from  all  that  is  sensible  :  it  is  wholly  in- 
dependent of  the  organisation  of  the  brain,  wholly 
independent  also  of  the  education  of  the  understand- 
ing.8 

This  was  written  in  1854,  when  psychology  was  at 
the  level  represented  by  Dr.  Carpenter,  who  was 
satisfied  that  — 

There  is  an  entity  wherein  man's  nobility  essentially 
consists,  which  does  not  depend  for  its  existence  on 
any  play  of  physical  or  vital  forces,  but  which  makes 
these  forces  subservient  to  its  determination.3 

That  Dr.  Wallace  accepts,  with  astounding  cre- 
dulity, the  genuineness  of  the  tricks  of  u  spiritualist  " 
charlatans  of  the  Eusapio  Paladino  type;  that  St. 
George  Mivart  died,  despite  his  treatment  at  the 

1  Genesis  of  Species,  p^325.  *  Memoir ;  by  his  Son,  p.  175. 

»  Mental  Physiology,  p.  27. 


THE    INTERPRETER  I2Q 

hands  of  his  Church,  a  professed  Catholic;  that  Sir 
James  Paget  accepted,  with  never  a  doubt,  the  dogmas 
of  orthodoxy  ;  and  that  Dr.  Carpenter  was  a  Unita- 
rian,— goes  far  to  explain  the  attitude  of  each.  But, 
surely,  these  opponents  of  the  doctrine  of  continuity, 
by  which  Evolution  stands  or  falls,  had  they  made 
the  effort,  must  have  found  it  difficult  to  envisage  the 
moment  of  supernatural  intervention  in  the  history 
of  man  when  he  passed  from  the  mortal  to  the  im- 
mortal ;  when  the  "  entity "  which  was  not  of  him 
was  injected  into  him.  There  is  an  inevitable  vague- 
ness in  the  words  of  each  writer;  but  it  must  be  as- 
sumed that  they  all  reject  the  old  "  preformation " 
theory  of  Leibnitz  and  Haller,  and  agree  as  to  the  im- 
portation of  a  separate  "  ens,"  or  "  being,"  into  every 
man  of  woman  born,  whereby  the  individual  becomes 
"  a  living  soul."  That  being  so,  it  is  permissible  to 
ask  at  what  stage  of  gestation  or  of  subsequent  de- 
velopment the  supernatural  act  of  special  creation, 
for  that  is  what  it  comes  to,  was  effected  ?  It  must 
be  admitted  that,  prior  to  this,  man  must  be  at  least 
potentially,  if  not,  by  reason  of  his  slow  develop- 
ment, actually,  an  animal  of  highly  equipped  intel- 
ligence. There  is  no  need,  in  the  common  phrase, 
to  "  pause  for  a  reply,"  because  no  reply  is  possible. 
A  few  words  of  Huxley's  will,  as  usual,  clear  the 
atmosphere  of  verbal  fog : — 


130  HUXLEY 

No  one  who  is  cognisant  of  the  facts  of  the  case 
nowadays  doubts  that  the  roots  of  psychology  lie  in  the 
physiology  of  the  nervous  system.  What  we  call  the 
operations  of  the  mind  are  functions  of  the  brain, 
and  the  materials  of  consciousness  are  products  of 
cerebral  activity.  Cabanis  may  have  made  use  of 
crude  and  misleading  phraseology  when  he  said  that 
the  brain  secretes  thought  as  the  liver  secretes  bile ; 
but  the  conception  which  that  much-abused  phrase 
embodies  is,  nevertheless,  far  more  consistent  with 
fact  than  the  popular  notion  that  the  mind  is  a 
metaphysical  entity  seated  in  the  head,  but  as  inde- 
pendent of  the  brain  as  a  telegraph  operator  is  of  his 
instrument. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  the  doctrine 
just  laid  down  is  what  is  commonly  called  materialism. 
But  it  is,  nevertheless,  true  that  the  doctrine  contains 
nothing  inconsistent  with  the  purest  idealism.  For 
as  Hume  remarks  (as  indeed  Descartes  had  observed 
long  before)  : — "  'Tis  not  our  body  we  perceive  when 
we  regard  our  limbs  and  members,  but  certain  im- 
pressions which  enter  by  the  senses ;  so  that  the  as- 
cribing a  real  and  corporeal  existence  to  these  im- 
pressions, or  to  their  objects,  is  an  act  of  the  mind  as 
difficult  to  explain  as  that  (the  external  existence  of 
objects)  which  we  examine  at  present."  Therefore, 
if  we  analyse  the  proposition  that  all  mental  phenom- 
ena are  the  effects  or  products  of  material  phenom- 
ena, all  that  it  means  amounts  to  this;  that  whenever 
those  states  of  consciousness  which  we  call  sensation, 
or  emotion,  or  thought  come  into  existence,  complete 
investigation  will  show  good  reason  for  the  belief  that 
they  are  preceded  by  those  other  phenomena  of  con- 
sciousness to  which  we  give  the  names  of  matter  and 
motion.  All  material  changes  appear,  in  the  long- 
run,  to  be  modes  of  motion ;  but  our  knowledge  of 
motion  is  nothing  but  that  of  a  change  in  the  place 


THE    INTERPRETER  13! 

and  order  of  our  sensations;  just  as  our  knowledge 
of  matter  is  restricted  to  those  feelings  of  which  we 
assume  it  to  be  the  cause.1 

Were  it  not,  as  Huxley  says,  that  "  the  ignorance 
of  the  so-called  educated  classes  is  colossal,"  there 
might  be  need  for  apology  in  restatement  of  the  fact 
that  man  is  not  descended  from  the  ape.  The  rela- 
tionship between  them  is  lateral,  not  lineal,  both  being 
offshoots  of  the  same  stock,  but  each  remaining,  of 
course  in  very  different  degrees  of  development,  iso- 
lated groups  of  mammals.  The  blood-relationship 
of  the  two  has  naturally  prompted  the  question  as  to 
the  missing  link.  A  pertinent  question,  which  has 
partial  answer  in  the  fact  that  all  intermediate  forms 
are,  in  virtue  of  their  transitional  character,  the  least 
likely  to  survive,  and  in  the  further  fact  that  the 
chances  against  the  preservation  of  any  remains  of 
the  progenitor  of  man  and  ape  are  as  manifold  as 
those  against  the  preservation  of  any  fossils  of  ani- 
mals of  correspondingly  small  size.  Even  in  the 
period  when  rudely-fashioned  stone  tools  and  weapons 
of  undoubted  human  origin  abound,  the  occurrence 
of  fragments  of  human  skeletons  is  rare.  In  the 
section  on  "  Fossil  Remains  of  Man "  in  Man's 
Place  in  Nature  Huxley  discusses  the  value  of  the 
evidence  supplied  by  skulls  found  in  various  bone- 
1  Coll.  Essays,  vi.  pp.  94,  95. 


132  HUXLEY 

caverns  of  Western  Europe,  discoveries  to  which 
several  important  additions  have  been  made  since 
1863.  Comparing  these  with  the  skulls  of  the  low- 
est savages  extant,  notably  the  Australian  aborigines, 
he  considered  that  we  are  not  taken  "  appreciably 
nearer  to  that  lower  pithecoid  form,  by  the  modifica- 
tion of  which  man  has,  probably,  become  what  he 
is."  Where,  then,  he  asks,  "must  we  look  for 
primeval  Man  ?  Was  the  oldest  Homo  sapiens  plio- 
cene or  miocene,  or  yet  more  ancient  ?  In  still  older 
strata  do  the  fossilised  bones  of  an  Ape  more  anthro- 
poid, or  a  Man  more  pithecoid,  than  any  yet  known, 
await  the  researches  of  some  unborn  palaeontologist  ? 
Time  will  show." 

Time  has  not  yet  shown.  But  in  1892  Dr. 
Eugene  Dubois  found  in  the  upper  Pliocene  beds  at 
Trinil,  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Bengavan,  in  Java, 
a  calvaria  or  portion  of  skull,  two  molar  teeth,  and  a 
thigh-bone,  which  he  assumed  belonged  to  an  animal 
named  by  him  Pithecanthropus  erectus^  or  "  upright 
ape-man."  The  forehead  was  low  and  narrow,  the 
inner  surface  of  the  skull  bore  impressions  of  con- 
volutions, and  M.  Dubois  estimated  that  the  brain  was 
about  twice  as  large  as  that  of  the  brain  of  the  largest 
anthropoid.  Although  the  shape  of  the  thigh-bone 
warranted  the  inference  that  the  creature  walked  erect, 
it  also  indicated  adaptation  to  a  tree-climbing  habit 


THE    INTERPRETER  133 

absent  in  the  human  thigh-bone.  Siam  and  Java 
may,  in  the  upper  Tertiary  period,  have  been  joined 
to  the  mainland  ;  and  these  remains  of  the  "  upright 
ape-man  "  occur  in  a  region  where  it  is  highly  prob- 
able that  man  and  ape  became  differentiated. 

When  Huxley  published  his  book  he  had  to  meet 
the  objection  that  the  belief  in  the  common  origin  of 
man  and  brute  involved  the  brutalisation  and  degrada- 
tion of  the  former.  But,  he  asks  — 

Is  this  really  so  ?  Could  not  a  sensible  child  confute, 
by  obvious  arguments,  the  shallow  rhetoricians  who 
would  force  this  conclusion  upon  us  ?  Is  it,  indeed, 
true  that  the  Poet,  or  the  Philosopher,  or  the  Artist, 
whose  genius  is  the  glory  of  his  age,  is  degraded  from 
his  high  estate  by  the  undoubted  historical  probability, 
not  to  say  certainty,  that  he  is  the  direct  descendant 
of  some  naked  and  bestial  savage,  whose  intelligence 
was  just  sufficient  to  make  him  a  little  more  cunning 
than  the  Fox,  and  by  so  much  more  dangerous  than 
the  Tiger  ?  Or  is  he  bound  to  howl  and  grovel  on 
all-fours  because  of  the  wholly  unquestionable  fact 
that  he  was  once  an  Egg,  which  no  ordinary  power 
of  discrimination  could  distinguish  from  that  of  a 
Dog  ?  Or  is  the  philanthropist  or  the  saint  to  give 
up  his  endeavour  to  lead  a  noble  life  because  the 
simplest  study  of  man's  nature  reveals  at  its  founda- 
tions all  the  selfish  passions  and  fierce  appetites  of 
the  merest  quadruped  ?  Is  mother-love  vile  because 
a  hen  shows  it,  or  fidelity  base  because  dogs  possess 
it? 

The  common-sense  of  the  mass  of  mankind  will 
answer  these  questions  without  a  moment's  hesitation. 
Healthy  humanity,  finding  itself  hard  pressed  to  es- 


134  HUXLEY 

cape  from  real  sin  and  degradation,  will  leave  the 
brooding  over  speculative  pollution  to  the  cynics  and 
the  "  righteous  overmuch,"  who,  disagreeing  in  every- 
thing else,  unite  in  blind  insensibility  to  the  nobleness 
of  this  visible  world,  and  in  inability  to  appreciate  the 
grandeur  of  the  place  Man  occupies  therein. 

Nay  more,  thoughtful  men,  escaped  from  the  blind- 
ing influences  of  traditional  prejudice,  will  find  in  the 
lowly  stock  whence  man  has  sprung,  the  best  evidence 
of  the  splendour  of  his  capacities ;  and  will  discern 
in  his  long  progress  through  the  Past  a  reasonable 
ground  of  faith  in  his  attainment  of  a  nobler  Future.1 

Several  causes  united  to  give  man  his  preeminence 
and  distinctive  place  in  the  "  files  of  time."  The 
slow  acquirement  of  the  erect  position  led  to  the  flat- 
tening of  the  feet ;  to  projection  of  the  heel  as  sup- 
port ;  and  to  the  altered  position  of  the  skull  with  the 
added  weight  of  brain  which  went  on  pan  passu  with 
new  functions,  the  skull  becoming  nicely  balanced  on 
the  spine,  which  became  more  curved,  and,  therefore, 
a  better  support.  The  bipedal  position  set  free  the 
arms  from  the  work  of  locomotion,  enabling  man  to 
use  them  as  organs  for  grasping  things,  whereby  their 
nature  was  ascertained,  and  for  the  manifold  purposes 
which  the  struggle  for  life  compelled.  Interaction  of 
brain  and  hand,  together  with  increased  modification 
of  the  thumb  as  opposable,  went  on  ;  while  the  gre- 
garious instinct,  more  and  more  developed,  bound  the 

1  Man's  Place  in  Nature,  pp.  no,  III. 


THE    INTERPRETER  135 

members  together  in  ever  enlarging  groups,  whose 
mutual  dependence  led  to  their  permanence,  and  to 
the  survival  of  the  strongest. 

To  these  purely  natural  factors  is  to  be  added  the 
enormous  part  played  by  the  evolution  of  articulate 
speech.  "  Much  water  has  flowed  under  the  bridges  " 
since  David  Hartley,  a  pioneer-anthropologist  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  of  whom  Huxley  had  high  appre- 
ciation, expressed  the  opinion  that,  owing  to  the 
shortness  of  the  time  which  has  elapsed  since  the 
Flood,  both  language  and  writing  must  have  been 
given  by  direct  miraculous  agency.1  Small  blame  to 
the  philosophers  of  that  time ;  but  not  to  those  who, 
in  our  own,  would  place  the  faculty  of  speech  among 
the  supernatural  endowments  of  man.  For  modern, 
physiology  has  not  only  demonstrated  that  the  cortex, 
or  layer  of  grey  cellular  substance,  which  covers  the 
cerebrum,  is  the  organ  of  the  mind ;  it  has  localised 
the  psychic  centres  to  which  the  several  sensory 
nerves  telegraph  their  reports  from  the  outer  world, 
and  it  has  also  determined  the  place  of  the  motor 
centre  of  articulate  speech.  In  discussing  the  struc- 
tural changes  in  the  brain  which  have  made  possible 
the  associated  movement  required  for  that  "  priceless 
gift,"  Professor  D.  J.  Cunningham,  in  the  address 

1  Hartley,  Prop.  Ixxxiii.,  quoted  by  Leslie  Stephen,  History  of 
English  Thought  in  the  Eighteenth  Century •,  i.  p.  193. 


136  HUXLEY 

already  referred  to,  shows  by  what  slow  processes  of 
natural  growth  it  must  have  .  been  acquired.  The 
more  intelligent  of  the  lower  animals  communicate 
with  one  another  and  express  their  feelings  by  various 
sounds,  and  the  progenitors  of  man  acted  likewise. 
The  actual  germs  of  language  existed  in  a  few  form- 
less roots,  most  of  these  being  natural  sounds,  whether 
in  the  tumbling  of  waters  or  the  song  of  birds,  and  it 
is  in  the  imitation  of  these  sounds  that  the  large 
number  of  words  known  as  onomatopoetic,  and  the 
enormous  number  of  words  derived  from  them,  have 
their  rise.  All  sounds  were  supplemented  by  gestures 
and  postures,  which,  among  some  races,  still  play  a 
great  part  in  communication.  And  it  is  to  a  physical 
and  sensible  source  that  our  most  abstract  and  meta- 
physical terms  are  traceable.  For  example,  when  we 
"  apprehend  "  a  thing,  we  "  lay  hold  "  of  it ;  when 
we  "  apply  "  ourselves  we  bend  "  towards  " ;  when 
we  "  transfer  "  we  "  carry  "  ;  to  "  concrete  "  is  to 
combine  particles  together,  while  to  "  abstract  "  is  to 
remove  them ;  and  few  of  us  remember  that  in  call- 
ing any  one  "  supercilious  "  we  mean,  literally,  that 
he  raises  his  eyebrows.  The  choice  and  currency  of 
this  and  that  sound  obviously  lay  in  the  aptness  with 
which  it  conveyed  the  meaning  in  the  mind  of  the 
speaker  to  that  of  the  listener.  Here  we  may  use  the 
terms  of  "  natural  selection  "  and  say  that  the  fittest 


THE    INTERPRETER  137 

for  the  purpose  survived,  and  passed  into  the  vocabu- 
lary, becoming  the  parent  of  a  great  group  of  words. 
Without  question,  the  acquisition  of  speech  became 
a  dominant  factor  in  determining  the  high  develop- 
ment of  the  human  brain.  To  quote  Professor  Cun- 
ningham : 

The  first  word  uttered  expressive  of  an  external  ob- 
ject marked  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  our  early 
progenitors.  At  this  point  the  simian  or  brute-like 
stage  in  their  developmental  career  came  to  an  end, 
and  the  human  dynasty,  endowed  with  all  its  intellec- 
tual possibilities,  began.  The  period  in  the  evolution 
of  man  at  which  this  important  step  was  taken  was  a 
vexed  question,  and  one  in  the  solution  of  which  we 
had  little  solid  ground  to  go  upon  beyond  the  material 
changes  produced  in  the  brain,  and  the  consideration 
of  the  time  that  these  might  reasonably  be  supposed 
to  take  in  their  development.  .  .  .  The  struc- 
tural characters  which  distinguish  the  human  brain  in 
the  region  of  the  speech-centre  constitute  one  of  the 
leading  peculiarities  of  the  human  cerebral  cortex ; 
they  are  totally  absent  in  the  brain  of  the  anthropoid 
ape,  and  of  the  speechless  microcephalic  idiot. 
Further,  it  was  significant  that  in  certain  anthropoid 
brains  a  slight  advance  in  the  same  direction  might 
occasionally  be  faintly  traced,  whilst  in  certain  human 
brains  a  distinct  backward  step  is  sometimes  notice- 
able. The  path  which  had  led  to  this  special  develop- 
ment was  thus  in  some  measure  delineated.  These 
structural  additions  to  the  human  brain  were  no  recent 
acquisition  by  the  stem-form  of  man,  but  were  the 
result  of  a  slow  evolutionary  growth,  a  growth  which 
had  been  stimulated  by  the  laborious  efforts  of  count- 
less generations  to  arrive  at  the  perfect  coordination 


138  HUXLEY 

of  all   the  muscular  factors  which   were   called  into 
play  in  the  production  of  articulate  speech.1 

"  It  goes  without  saying  "  that  in  his  all-round  ap- 
plication of  the  doctrine  of  evolution  Huxley  came 
to  close  quarters  with  those  who  demand  the  exclusion 
of  the  psychical  nature  of  man  from  its  operations. 
In  one  of  the  last  papers  that  he  wrote  he  contended> 
with  rigorous  logic,  that  "  if  man  has  come  into  ex- 
istence by  the  same  process  of  evolution  as  other  ani- 
mals ;  if  his  history,  hitherto,  is  that  of  a  gradual 
progress  to  a  higher  thought  and  a  larger  power  over 
things  ;  if  that  history  is  essentially  natural,  the  fron- 
tiers of  the  new  world,  within  which  scientific  method 
is  supreme,  will  receive  such  a  remarkable  extension 
as  to  leave  little  but  cloudland  for  its  rival."  2 

The  discoveries  of  the  astronomer  since  the  time 
of  Copernicus  had  compelled  momentous  changes  in 
old  conceptions  of  the  relation  of  the  earth  to  the 
other  bodies  of  space  ;  those  of  the  geologists,  from 
the  time  of  Hutton  and  Lyell,  had  modified  ideas  con- 
cerning its  age  and  the  processes  moulding  its  surface ; 
and  those  of  the  palaeontologists,  from  the  time  of 
Cuvier,  had  revolutionised  theories  of  the  origin  of 
death  as  due  to  the  original  sin  of  Adam.  A  yet 
more  profound  revolution  was  set  afoot  when  the  rude 

1  Times,  September  14,  1901.  »  Nature,  November  I,  1894. 


THE    INTERPRETER  139 

tools  and  weapons  of  ancient  river-gravels  and  bone- 
caverns  brought  their  witness  to  man's  high  antiquity 
and  primitive  savagery,  since  therein  was  the  further 
refutation  of  the  doctrine  of  his  fall  on  which  the 
scheme  of  his  redemption  rests.  To  these  witnesses 
were  added  those  supplied  by  students  of  comparative 
mythology  as  to  the  origin  of  the  Creation,  Paradise, 
and  other  legends,  evidencing  these  to  be  the  product 
of  pre-scientific  periods,  when  myths,  gathering  sanc- 
tity with  age,  became  the  unquestioned  explanations 
of  phenomena. 

Hence,  the  old  positions,  one  by  one,  have  been 
abandoned  on  the  advance  of  solid  phalanxes  of  facts, 
until  the  defenders,  strong  in  faith  in  its  ultimate  im- 
pregnability, have  made  their  last  stand  within  the 
citadel  of  Mansoul.  But  all  in  vain.  The  venerable 
walls,  mounted  with  the  old  weapons  of  obscurant- 
ism, ignorance,  and  misrepresentation,  have  been 
stormed  by  the  resistless  forces  of  truth,  and  although 
the  opening  of  the  gates  to  the  victor  be  delayed,  his 
triumph  is  assured.  But  of  this  conflict — the  Jehad 
of  Science — in  which  Huxley  was  "gladiator-gen- 
eral "  and  inspirer,  more  anon. 

Meanwhile,  to  return  to  his  work  as  interpreter,  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that,  hitherto,  his  exposition 
of  the  theory  of  evolution  had  been  limited  to  the 
organic.  Thus  far  he  followed  Darwin,  the  Origin 


140  HUXLEY 

of  Species  not  being  concerned  with  the  evolution  of 
the  inorganic,  nor  with  the  problem  of  the  origin  of 
life,  nor  with  the  relation  of  the  living  to  the  not- 
living.  As  already  noted,  speculations  on  these  high 
matters  had  their  rise  in  Ionia  five  or  six  centuries  be- 
fore Christ,  and,  after  an  arrest  of  a  thousand  years, 
due  to  political  and  theological  changes,  had  made  a 
new  start  some  three  hundred  years  ago.  But  it  was 
not  until  the  last  century  was  well  advanced  that  any 
attempt  to  coordinate  the  several  branches  of  knowl- 
edge into  a  harmonious  theory  of  development  was 
possible,  and  for  the  achievement  of  this  the  world  is 
indebted  to  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  whose  "  Synthetic 
Philosophy,"  dealing  with  evolution  as  an  all-inclusive 
process,  begins  with  the  condensation  of  vaporous 
stuff  into  cosmic  systems,  and  ends  with  the  develop- 
ment of  human  society.  He  explains  all  phenomena, 
from  suns  to  souls,  as  the  necessary  results  of  the  per- 
sistence of  force  under  its  forms  of  matter  and 
motion,  both  indestructible,  both  ever  changing,  that 
which  thus  persists  being  "an  unknown  and  unknow- 
able" power,  which  we  are  obliged  to  recognise  as 
without  limit  in  space  and  without  beginning  or  end 
in  time.  Thus,  in  endless  rhythm,  are  the  changes 
rung  on  Evolution  and  Dissolution  from  eternity  to 
eternity.  Huxley  did  "  not  very  much  care  to  speak 
of  anything  as  *  unknowable,'  and  regrets  that  he  made 


THE    INTERPRETER  14! 

the  mistake  of  wasting  a  capital  c  U '  upon  it." ! 
What  he  was  sure  about  was  that  there  were  many 
things  concerning  which  he  knew  nothing,  and  which, 
so  far  as  he  could  see,  were  out  of  reach  of  human 
faculties. 

Whether  these  things  are  knowable  by  any  one  else 
is  exactly  one  of  those  matters  which  is  beyond  my 
knowledge,  though  I  may  have  a  tolerably  strong  opin- 
ion as  to  the  probabilities  of  the  case.  Relatively  to 
myself,  I  am  quite  sure  that  the  region  of  uncertainty 
— the  nebulous  country  in  which  words  play  the  part 
of  realities — is  far  more  extensive  than  I  could  wish.2 

But  his  endorsement  of  Mr.  Spencer's  contention  as 
to  the  fundamental  unity  of  the  organic  and  the  in- 
organic was  emphatic.  In  an  address  to  the  Interna- 
tional Medical  Congress  in  1881  he  says:  — 

In  nature,  nothing  is  at  rest,  nothing  is  amorphous ; 
the  simplest  particle  of  that  which  men  in  their  blind- 
ness are  pleased  to  call  "  brute  matter  "  is  a  vast  ag- 
gregate of  molecular  mechanisms  performing  compli- 
cated movements  of  immense  rapidity,  and  sensitively 
adjusting  themselves  to  every  change  in  the  surround- 
ing world. 

And  living  matter  differs  from  other  matter  in  de- 
gree and  not  in  kind ;  the  microcosm  repeats  the 
macrocosm  ;  and  one  chain  of  causation  connects  the 
nebulous  original  of  suns  and  planetary  systems  with 
the  protoplasmic  foundation  of  life  and  organisation. 3 

1  Coll.  Essays,  v.  p.  311.     See  NOTE,  infra. 

2  Ib.,  p.  311.  3  Coll.  Essays,  iii.  p.  371. 


1^2  HUXLEY 

Thirteen  years  earlier  he  had  said  the  same  thing 
on  a  Sunday  evening  in  November  to  an  Edinburgh 
audience.  Like  his  wonderful  discourse  on  "  Animal 
Automatism,"  delivered  before  the  British  Association 
at  Belfast,  his  Edinburgh  "  lay  sermon "  on  "  The 
Physical  Basis  of  Life  "  was  spoken  without  depend- 
ence on  note  or  reference,  and  afterwards  written  out 
from  memory  for  publication.  Following  on  the 
demonstration  of  the  identical  constitution  of  proto- 
plasm as  the  raw  stuff  which  builds  up  the  cell  as  the 
structural  foundation  of  every  living  thing,  Huxley 
showed  that  the  protoplasm  itself  is  built  up  of  cer- 
tain compounds, and  that  "a  threefold  unity — namely, 
a  unity  of  power  or  faculty,  a  unity  of  form,  and  a 
unity  of  substantial  composition — pervades  the  whole 
living  world." 

In  whatever  form  protoplasm  is  manifest,  whether, 
as  in  the  very  lowest  plant  or  animal,  without  a 
nucleus,  or,  as  in  the  higher  organisms,  nucleated, 
there  are  found  four  of  the  elementary  substances, 
carbon,  hydrogen,  oxygen,  and  nitrogen,  in  very  com- 
plex union.  These  non-living  materials  the  plant, 
and  the  plant  alone,  by  some  mysterious  alchemy, 
converts  into  a  living  thing,  and  upon  this  the  animal 
sustains  life.  It  is  not  easy  to  determine  where  the 
plant  ends  and  where  the  animal  begins,  since  some 
organisms  exhibit  the  characters  of  both,  but,  broadly 


THE    INTERPRETER  143 

speaking,  the  fact  abides  that  the  animal  depends  on 
the  vegetable.  And,  clearly,  the  vegetable  depends, 
plus  the  energy  of  the  sun,  on  the  mineral.  Each  of 
the  four  elements  of  which  protoplasm  is  made  up  is, 
by  itself,  ineffective  to  produce  the  organic;  united, 
they  are  stirred  by  complex  movements  of  astounding 
rapidity  which  constitute  the  phenomena  of  life  at  its 
simplest ;  life  whose  "  hidden  bond  connects  the 
flower  which  a  girl  wears  in  her  hair  with  the  blood 
which  courses  through  her  youthful  veins,"  and  the 
"  brightly  coloured  lichen,  which  so  nearly  resembles 
a  mere  mineral  incrustation  of  the  bare  rock  on 
which  it  grows,  with  the  painter,  to  whom  it  is  in- 
stinct with  beauty,  and  the  botanist,  whom  it  feeds 
with  knowledge."  * 

The  dependence  of  the  highest  upon  the  lowest 
living  things,  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  close  rela- 
tion between  them,  is  too  obvious  to  be  questioned ; 
but  so  great  is  the  reluctance  to  push  things  to  con- 
clusions involving  collision  with  traditionally-received 
ideas,  that  this  admission  does  not  affect  the  common 
belief  in  a  difference  of  kind,  say,  between  the  stand- 
ing corn  and  the  man  who  reaps  it  for  his  daily 
bread.  Still  stronger  is  the  feeling  that  life  itself, 
whether  in  the  weed  or  the  philosopher,  is  an 
"entity"  in  matter,  but  not  ofh;  the  view  which,  as 
1  Coll.  Essays,  i.  p.  131. 


144  HUXLEY 

has  been  seen,  Dr.  Alfred  Russel  Wallace  and  others 
hold  concerning  the  introduction  of  a  spiritual  faculty 
into  man  at  some  stage  of  his  development  being  ex- 
tended, in  the  popular  mind,  to  the  introduction  of 
life  on  the  globe  as  due  to  the  direct  action  of  the 
Almighty.  Huxley's  assertion  that  "  living  matter 
differs  from  other  matter  in  degree  and  not  in  kind," 
is,  therefore,  a  hard  saying,  and  few  there  be  who 
accept  it.  It  seems  to  shatter  "  the  mighty  hopes  that 
make  us  men."  The  theory  that  man  has  descended, 
in  an  unbroken  chain,  like  all  the  other  higher  ani- 
mals, from  simple  life-forms,  offends  his  "  pride  of 
life  " ;  but  the  theory  that  there  is  no  difference  in 
kind  between  him  and  the  dust  on  which  he  treads 
excites  his  repugnance,  and  stirs  him  to  revolt.  It 
was  repellant  enough  to  make  him  one  with  the  tardy 
snail  and  the  immobile  oyster,  for  the  question  of  his 
immortality  seemed  thereby  involved  with  that  of 
theirs ;  but  to  make  him  one  with  the  lifeless  earth 
seemed  the  very  "superfluity  of  naughtiness,"  and 
the  outcome  of  a  diabolical  materialism. 

Huxley  knew  that  this  cry  would  be  raised  when 
he  went  to  Edinburgh.  And  although,  as  will  be 
seen,  he  made  "a  protest,  from  the  philosophical  side, 
against  what  is  commonly  called  *  materialism,'  "  he 
found  himself  "generally  credited  with  having  in- 
vented *  protoplasm '  in  the  interests  of  l  material- 


THE    INTERPRETER  145 

ism.'  "  But  he  proceeded  to  justify  his  words  by 
the  following  comparison,  the  design  of  which  was  to 
show  that  the  ultimate  nature  of  matter  is  as  fully  a 
mystery  as  that  of  mind,  and  that  the  terms  in  which 
we  speak  of  the  one  are  equally  applicable  to  the 
other. 

Carbon,  hydrogen,  oxygen,  and  nitrogen,  when 
brought  together  under  certain  conditions,  give  rise  to 
the  complex  stuff,  protoplasm,  which  manifests  what 
is  known  as  life.  When  two  of  these  elements, 
oxygen  and  hydrogen,  are  mixed  in  a  certain  propor- 
tion, and  an  electric  spark  is  passed  through  them, 
they  disappear,  and  the  result  is  water.  In  the  one 
case  we  talk  of  a  "  vital  force"  having  stirred  the 
dead  elements  into  living  matter ;  but  in  the  other 
case  we  do  not  talk  of  a  something  called  "  aquosity  " 
having  blended  the  two  invisible  gases  into  visible 
water.  Is  not  the  one  process  as  mysterious  as  the 
other  ? 

Does  anybody  quite  comprehend  the  modus  operand! 
of  an  electric  spark,  which  traverses  a  mixture  of 
oxygen  and  hydrogen  ? 

What  justification  is  there,  then,  for  the  assump- 
tion of  the  existence  in  the  living  matter  of  a  some- 
thing which  has  no  representative  or  correlative  in  the 
not-living  matter  which  gave  rise  to  it  ?  What  better 
philosophical  status  has  "  vitality  "  than  "  aquosity  "  ? 
.  .  .  If  the  phenomena  exhibited  by  water  are  its 
1  Lay  Sermons,  Preface,  p.  vii. 


146  HUXLEY 

properties,  so  are  those  presented  by  protoplasm,  living 
or  dead,  its  properties.  If  the  properties  of  water 
may  be  properly  said  to  result  from  the  nature  and 
disposition  of  its  component  molecules,  I  can  find  no 
intelligible  ground  for  refusing  to  say  that  the  prop- 
erties of  protoplasm  result  from  the  nature  and  dis- 
position of  its  molecules.  .  .  . 

It  may  seem  a  small  thing  to  admit  that  the  dull 
vital  actions  of  a  fungus  or  a  foraminifer  are  the 
properties  of  their  protoplasm,  and  are  the  direct  re- 
sults of  the  nature  of  the  matter  of  which  they  are 
composed.  But  if  their  protoplasm  is  essentially 
identical  with,  and  most  readily  converted  into,  that 
of  any  animal,  I  can  discover  no  logical  halting-place 
between  the  admission  that  such  is  the  case  and  the 
further  concession  that  all  vital  action  may,  with  equal 
propriety,  be  said  to  be  the  result  of  the  molecular 
forces  of  the  protoplasm  which  displays  it.  And  if 
so,  it  must  be  true,  in  the  same  sense  and  to  the  same 
extent,  that  the  thoughts  to  which  I  am  now  giving 
utterance,  and  your  thoughts  regarding  them,  are  the 
expression  of  molecular  changes  in  that  matter  of  life 
which  is  the  source  of  our  other  vital  phenomena.1 


The  origin  of  life  remains,  and  will  doubtless  re- 
main, an  unsolved  problem,  if  for  no  other  reason 
than  the  absolute  effacement  of  the  primitive  forms, 
the  fragility  of  which  is  to  be  inferred  from  all  that  is 
known  of  the  lowest  organisms.  But  the  problem  of 
the  origin  of  water,  without  which  life  could  not  have 
been,  also  remains  unsolved.  The  chemist  can  both 
decompose  and  produce  water;  but,  as  Huxley  asks, 

1  Coll.  Essays,  i.  pp.  152,  154. 


THE    INTERPRETER  147 

who  can  comprehend  the  modus  operandi  of  the  electric 
spark?  Chemistry  has  also  succeeded  in  manufac- 
turing nearly  two  hundred  organic  compounds  from 
dead  matter ;  Professor  Britschli  has  even  produced  a 
substance  which  simulates  protoplasm, — but  the 
arcana  vita  remains  hidden.  Nevertheless,  noting 
what  advances  have  been  made  in  organic  chemistry, 
in  molecular  physics,  and  in  physiology,  Huxley 
thinks  that  "  it  would  be  the  height  of  presumption 
for  any  man  to  say  that  the  conditions  under  which 
matter  assumes  the  properties  we  call  c  vital '  may  not 
be  artificially  brought  together."  The  manifest  inti- 
mate connection  between  vital  and  electrical  phenom- 
ena is  a  further  reason  against  dogmatism  on  the 
subject.  And  since  the  "  scientific  use  of  the  imagi- 
nation "  has  been  the  handmaid  of  progress,  it  is 
permissible  to  speculate,  as  does  Huxley,  on  the 
possible  mode  of  the  beginning  of  life,  whose  "  vital 
spark,"  once  kindled,  has,  like  the  fire  on  the  altar 
of  Vesta,  known  no  extinguishment. 

To  say  that,  in  the  admitted  absence  of  evidence,  I 
have  any  belief  as  to  the  mode  in  which  the  existing 
forms  of  life  have  originated,  would  be  using  words 
in  a  wrong  sense.  But  expectation  is  permissible 
where  belief  is  not ;  and  if  it  were  given  me  to  look 
beyond  the  abyss  of  geologically  recorded  time  to  the 
still  more  remote  period  when  the  earth  was  passing 
through  physical  and  chemical  conditions  which  it  can 
no  more  see  again  than  a  man  can  recall  his  infancy, 


148  HUXLEY 

I  should  expect  to  be  a  witness  of  the  evolution  »f 
living  protoplasm  from  not-living  matter. 

I  should  expect  to  see  it  appear  under  forms  «f 
great  simplicity,  endowed,  like  existing  fungi,  with 
the  power  of  determining  the  formation  of  new  pro- 
toplasm from  such  matters  as  ammonium  carbonates, 
oxalates,  and  tartrates,  alkaline  and  earthy  phosphates, 
and  water  without  the  aid  of  light.  That  is  the  ex- 
pectation to  which  analogical  reasoning  leads  me; 
but  I  beg  you  once  more  to  recollect  that  I  have  no 
right  to  call  my  opinion  anything  but  an  act  of  philo- 
sophical faith. ' 

The  success  which  has  attended  the  search  after 
fundamental  likeness  between  the  earth  and  its  living, 
as  well  as  not-living,  contents,  has  followed  all  obser- 
vation into  the  nature  and  constitution  of  the  system 
of  which  the  earth  is  one  of  the  lesser  members. 
While  the  conditions  prevailing  in  the  sun  and  planets 
make  it  certain  that  life,  as  we  know  it,  cannot  be 
present  in  them,  the  differences  between  them  and 
our  globe  are  only,  using  the  term  in  its  chemical 
sense,  quantitative.  They  are  made  of  the  same 
stuff  as  the  globe  itself.  So,  broadly  speaking,  are 
the  stars.  The  year  1859  is  memorable  in  science, 
not  only  for  the  publication  of  the  Origin  of  Species, 
but  for  the  triumphant  researches  of  Kirchhoff  and 
Bunsen  into  the  chemistry  of  the  sun. 

In  1802,  one  hundred  and  thirty  years  after  New- 

1  Coll.  Essays,  viii.  p.  256. 


THE    INTERPRETER  149 

ton  had  refracted  a  sunray  on  a  prism,  and  shown 
that  light  is  made  up  of  differently  coloured  rays, 
Wollaston,  using  a  thin  slit  to  admit  the  ray,  observed 
that  it  was  crossed  by  a  few  dark  lines.  In  1814, 
Fraunhofer  succeeded,  by  means  of  yet  finer  appara- 
tus, in  detecting  nearly  six  hundred  of  these  lines. 
He,  and  following  observers,  made  shrewd  guesses  as 
to  their  meaning,  but  another  forty-five  years  passed 
before  the  riddle  was  read.  The  details  of  its  solu- 
tion are  given  in  popular  books  on  astronomy  ;  and 
here  it  must  suffice  to  say  that  the  lines,  which  are 
now  counted  in  their  thousands,  reveal  the  secret  of 
the  chemical  constitution  of  the  sun,  and  tell  us  that 
not  only  are  iron,  sodium,  and  some  thirty  other  ele- 
ments present  in  his  atmosphere,  the  spectrum  of  iron 
alone  numbering  above  two  thousand  lines,  but  that 
the  raw  materials  of  protoplasm,  notably  its  most  im- 
portant constituent,  carbon,  are  present  also. l  Kirch- 
hoff's  discovery  was  followed  by  Sir  William  Hug- 
gins's  analysis  of  the  light  from  stars  and  nebulas, 
which  proved  that  the  former  are  made  of  like 
materials  as  the  sun,  himself  a  star  of  no  high  magni- 
tude, and  that  the  latter  are  gaseous,  the  vagrant 
comets  having  a  spectrum  which  is  a  compound  of 
carbon  and  hydrogen.  The  same  astronomer  also 

1  On  the  apparent  absence  of  oxygen  and  nitrogen  in  the  solar 
atmosphere,  see  my  Pioneers  of  Evolution,  p.  165. 


150  HUXLEY 

ingeniously  discovered  that  a  minute  displacement  of 
the  lines  of  their  spectra  gave  a  key  to  the  direction 
of  the  movements  of  the  stars  in  space,  while  their 
colours  indicate  whether  they  are  in  the  stages  of 
youth,  maturity,  or  decay. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  apelike  man  to  the  nebula, 
and  yet,  in  the  foregoing  rapid  summary  of  cosmic 
processes,  no  warrant  can  be  found  for  assumption  of 
any  break  in  causal  relations.  Nevertheless,  when 
Huxley  made  the  naked  statement  that  there  is  no 
difference  in  kind  between  living  and  not-living  mat- 
ter; and  when  Tyndall,  decking  the  same  in  rhetor- 
ical garb,  said  that  "  all  our  philosophy,  all  our  poetry, 
all  our  science,  all  our  art — Plato,  Shakespeare,  Newton 
and  Raphael — are  potentia,  in  the  fires  of  the  sun,"  l 
there  can  be  little  wonder  that  charges  of  the  kind 
made  by  the  Presbytery  of  Belfast,  that  they  "  ignored 
the  existence  of  God,  and  advocated  pure  and  simple 
materialism,"  were  levelled  against  them. 

Huxley  anticipated  this ;  and  in  his  Edinburgh 
lecture,  as  later,  more  elaborately,  in  Hume  and  Helps 
to  the  Study  of  Berkeley?  he  deals  with  subjects  which 
bring  us  face  to  face  with  the  ultimate  problems  of 
philosophy.  He  was  no  tyro  in  these  :  from  his  early 
boyhood,  when,  reading  Sir  William  Hamilton,  he 

1  Fragments  of  Science,  p.  453. 

•These  fill  the  sixth  volume  of  Collected  Essays. 


THE    INTERPRETER  15! 

found  only  "  cunning  phrases  for  answers,"  ]  his  in- 
terest in  metaphysics  had  been  deep  and  constant. 
He  had  only  scorn  for  the  logomachies  of  the 

41  pure  metaphysicians,"  who  attempt  to  base  the 
theory  of  knowing  upon  supposed  necessary  and  uni- 
versal truths,  and  assert  that  scientific  observation  is 
impossible  unless  such  truths  are  already  known  and 
implied,  which  to  those  who  are  not  "  pure  metaphy- 
sicians "  seems  very  much  as  if  one  should  say  that 
the  fall  of  a  stone  cannot  be  observed  unless  the  law 
of  gravitation  is  already  in  the  mind  of  the  observer.2 
The  roots  of  every  system  of  philosophy  lie  deep 
among  the  facts  of  physiology.  No  one  can  doubt 
that  the  organs  and  the  functions  of  sensation  are  as 
much  a  part  of  the  province  of  the  physiologist  as 
are  the  organs  and  functions  of  motion  or  those  of 
digestion ;  and  yet  it  is  impossible  to  gain  an  ac- 
quaintance with  even  the  rudiments  of  the  physiology 
of  sensation  without  being  led  straight  to  one  of  the 
most  fundamental  of  all  metaphysical  problems.  In 
fact,  the  sensory  operations  have  been,  from  time  im- 
memorial, the  battle-ground  of  philosophers.3 

Wherefore,  in  the  preface  to  the  latest  edition  of 
Hume,  he  caustically  advises  those  "  who  desire  to 
discourse  fluently  and  learnedly  about  philosophical 
questions  to  begin  with  the  lonians  and  to  work 
steadily  through  to  the  latest  speculative  treatise ; " 
while  for  those  who  "  are  animated  by  the  much  rarer 
desire  for  real  knowledge,"  and  who  want  to  get  a 
clear  conception  of  the  "  deepest  problems  set  before 

1  Ante,  p.  3.      2  Coll.  Essays,  vi.  p.  62.      »  Coll.  Essays,  vi.  p.  291. 


152  HUXLEY 

the  intellect  of  man,"  he  sees  no  need  to  travel  out- 
side "  the  limits  of  the  English  tongue."  For  this 
purpose  "  three  authors  will  suffice,  namely,  Berkeley, 
Hume,  and  Hobbes."  To  which  select  company 
there  may  be  added  himself,  with  advice  to  master  the 
sixth  volume  of  Collected  Essays  and  the  papers  on 
Descartes.1 

A  materialist,  as  commonly  understood,  holds  that 
the  universe  is  made-up  of  matter,  of  which  all  forms 
of  activity,  whether  mechanical  or  spiritual,  are  prod- 
ucts. The  substance  called  matter  is  thus  the  sub- 
stance of  all  things.  This  shallow  view  Huxley 
wholly  repudiated,  but  not  without  protest  against  the 
vulgar  idea  of  matter  entertained  by  the  majority  of 
persons.  In  an  appendix  to  a  paper  on  the  "  Meta- 
physics of  Sensation  "  he  shows  that  what  is  loosely 
and  ignorantly  spoken  of  as  dead  or  inert  and  alto- 
gether base — a  notion  due  to  Platonists  and  to  the- 
ologians, both  of  the  East  and  West — throbs  with 
rhythmic  movements  of  incredible  rapidity,  and  is 
charged  with  that  element  of  true  mystery  wherein 
wonder  has  its  abiding  source. 

The  handful  of  soil  is  a  factory  thronged  with 
swarms  of  busy  workers ;  the  rusty  nail  is  an  aggre- 
gation of  millions  of  particles  moving  with  incon- 
ceivable velocity  in  a  dance  of  infinite  complexity, 

1  Ib.,  i.  pp.  166-250. 


THE    INTERPRETER  153 

yet  perfect  measure ;  harmonic  with  like  perform- 
ances throughout  the  solar  system.  If  there  is  good 
ground  for  any  conclusion,  there  is  such  for  the  belief 
that  the  substance  of  these  particles  has  existed,  and 
will  exist,  that  the  energy  which  stirs  them  has  per- 
sisted, and  will  persist,  without  assignable  limit,  either 
in  the  past  or  in  the  future.  .  .  .  Those  who  are 
thoroughly  imbued  with  this  view  of  what  is  called 
"  matter  "  find  it  a  little  difficult  to  understand  why 
that  which  is  termed  "  mind  "  should  give  itself  such 
airs  of  superiority  over  the  twin  sister,  to  whom,  so 
far  as  our  planet  is  concerned,  it  might  be  hazardous 
to  deny  the  right  of  primogeniture. 

Accepting  the  ordinary  view  of  mind,  it  is  a  sub- 
stance the  properties  of  which  are  states  of  conscious- 
ness, on  the  one  hand,  and  energy  of  the  same  order 
as  that  of  the  material  world  (or  else  it  would  not  be 
able  to  effect  the  latter)  on  the  other  hand.  It  is  ad- 
mitted that  chance  has  no  more  place  in  the  world  of 
mind  than  it  has  in  that  of  matter.  Sensations,  emo- 
tions, intellections  are  subject  to  an  order  as  strict  and 
inviolable  as  that  which  obtains  among  material 
things.1 

The  question  follows,  "What  can  we  know  of 
what  we  call  matter  or  of  what  we  call  mind  ?  " 
And  the  answer  is,  So  far  as  the  ultimate  nature  of 
either  is  concerned,  nothing.  Our  knowledge  of 
both  is  inferential ;  it  is  limited  to  the  impressions 
conveyed  by  the  senses  to  the  brain :  in  Huxley's 
words,  "  our  knowledge  is  restricted  to  those  feelings 
of  which  we  assume  external  phenomena  to  be  the 

cause." 

1  Coll.  Essays,  vi.  p.  285. 


154  HUXLEY 

The  senses  are  the  gateways  of  knowledge,  and  we 
assume  that  impulses  vibrating  from  without  enter 
these,  and  are  conveyed  by  the  nerves  to  the  central 
nervous  system — the  seat  of  consciousness,  or  of 
knowledge  of  what  goes  on  in  the  mind.  We  see, 
we  smell,  we  hear,  we  taste,  we  touch  ;  but  the 
colour,  the  scent,  the  sound,  the  flavour,  the  hardness 
or  softness,  the  warmth  or  coldness,  are  not  in  the 
things  which  we  assume  to  be  the  cause  of  these  sen- 
sations. They  are  in  what  is  called  "  states  of  con- 
sciousness." How  the  passage  is  effected  from  the 
nerve-cells  to  consciousness  we  have  no  means  of 
knowing.  The  thing  is  an  insoluble  mystery.  The 
mutual  dependence  of  what  we  call  the  body  and 
what  we  call  the  mind  is  certain.  We  know  nothing 
of  mind  apart  from  matter.  We  know  that  the  brain 
is  the  organ  of  thought,  and  we  cannot  conceive  of 
changes  in  the  nerve-cells  being  produced  by  con- 
sciousness, so  that  the  psychical  seems  wholly  sub- 
ordinate to  the  physical.  Every  feeling,  every 
thought,  is  accompanied  by  molecular  changes,  and 
Huxley  expressed  the  belief,  which  the  "new  psy- 
chology "  may  justify,  that  "  we  shall,  sooner  or  later, 
arrive  at  a  mechanical  equivalent  of  consciousness, 
just  as  we  have  arrived  at  a  mechanical  equivalent  of 
heat."  '  That  marvellous  faculty  by  which  things  are 
1  Colt.  Essays,  i.  p.  191. 


THE    INTERPRETER  155 

remembered  appears  to  be  due  to  molecular  changes 
"  which  give  rise  to  a  state  of  consciousness,  leaving 
a  more  or  less  persistent  structural  modification, 
through  which  the  same  molecular  changes  may  be 
regenerated  by  other  agencies  than  the  cause  which 
first  produced  them."  l 

Of  course  no  sane  person  doubts  the  existence  of 
an  external  world,  or  cosmos,  built  up,  in  Lord 
Kelvin's  phrase,  "  of  coarse-grained  matter."  Atoms 
are  not,  as  Professor  Rucker  skilfully  argued  in  his 
Presidential  Address  on  the  "  Fundamental  Concepts 
of  Physics  "  to  the  British  Association  at  Glasgow  in 
1901,  "merely  helps  to  puzzled  mathematicians,  but 
physical  realities,"  probably  made  up  of  simpler  parts, 
modifications  of  one  prima  materia.  And  in  respect 
of  force,  the  several  modes  of  motion  are  explicable 
only  on  the  assumption  that  particles  of  matter  are 
being  moved.  Hence  the  atomic  theory,  despite 
recent  attacks,  holds  the  field. 2  Concerning  these 
things,  the  common  consciousness  of  mankind  brings 
the  same  report,  but  the  fact  no  less  remains  that  we 
can  only  assume  the  existence  of  beings  with  minds 
like  our  own.  For  they  are  a  part  of  the  phenomena 
whose  ultimate  nature,  as  was  said  above,  we  cannot 

1  Coll.  Essays,  i.  p.  215. 

2  For   Professor  Rucker's   Address,  see   Times,  September  12, 
1901. 


156  HUXLEY 

know.  There  is  "  only  one  abstract  certainty  possi- 
ble to  man — namely,  that  at  any  given  moment  the 
feeling  which  he  has  exists.  All  other  so-called  cer- 
tainties are  beliefs  of  greater  or  less  intensity."  l  The 
poet-astronomer  of  Naishapur  stretches  "  lame  hands" 
across  the  ages  to  the  modern  psychologist : — 

"  We  are  no  other  than  a  moving  row 
Of  Magic  Shadow-Shapes  that  come  and  go 
Round  with  the  Sun-illumined  Lantern  held 
In  Midnight  by  the  Master  of  the  Show." 

But,  as  Huxley  points  out,  although  it  is  of  small  con- 
sequence whether  we  speak  of  the  phenomena  of 
matter  in  terms  of  spirit,  or  of  those  of  spirit  in  terms 
of  matter,  since  matter  may  be  regarded  as  a  form  of 
thought,  and  thought  may  be  regarded  as  a  property 
of  matter,  there  is  every  reason  for  using  the  mate- 
rialistic terminology : — 

For  it  connects  thought  with  the  other  phenomena 
of  the  universe,  and  suggests  inquiry  into  the  nature 
of  those  physical  conditions,  or  concomitants  of 
thought,  which  are  more  or  less  accessible  to  us,  and 
a  knowledge  of  which  may  help  us  to  exercise  the 
same  kind  of  control  over  the  world  of  thought  as  we 
already  possess  in  respect  of  the  material  world : 
whereas  the  alternative,  or  spiritualistic,  terminology 
is  utterly  barren,  and  leads  to  nothing  but  obscurity 
and  confusion  of  ideas.  .  .  .  But  the  man  of 
science  who,  forgetting  the  limits  of  philosophical  in- 

'II.  262. 


THE    INTERPRETER  157 

quiry,  slides  from  these  formulae  and  symbols  into  what 
is  commonly  understood  by  materialism,  seems  to  me 
to  place  himself  on  a  level  with  the  mathematician 
who  should  mistake  the  x's  and  y's  with  which  he 
works  his  problems  for  real  entities,  and  with  this 
further  disadvantage,  as  compared  with  the  mathema- 
tician, that  the  blunders  of  the  latter  are  of  no  prac- 
tical consequence,  while  the  errors  of  systematic  ma- 
terialism may  paralyse  the  energies  and  destroy  the 
beauty  of  a  life.1 

In  his  repudiation  of  the  coarser  materialistic  views 
of  the  universe,  and  in  his  recognition  what  insoluble 
mystery  attends  the  connection  between  the  thoughts 
of  a  man  and  the  organ  of  those  thoughts,  Huxley 
was  under  no  delusion  that  he  had  disarmed  old  prej- 
udices, or  secured  any  deserters  from  the  orthodox 
camp.  For,  in  place  of  conceding  anything,  he  had 
only  made  clearer  his  hostility  towards  the  super- 
natural explanations  in  which  alone  his  opponents 
found  rest  and  satisfaction.  And  seeing  to  what  nar- 
row dimensions  the  region  once  covered  by  those  ex- 
planations had  shrunk  before  the  advance  of  the  forces 
of  natural  knowledge,  he  pressed  on  to  conquest  of 
what  remained. 

1  Coll.  Essays,  i.  pp.  164,  165. 


IV 

THE    CONTROVERSIALIST 

IN  a  letter  to  his  wife,  written  at  Baden,  in  1873, 
Huxley  says : 

We  are  in  the  midst  of  a  gigantic  movement, 
greater  than  that  which  preceded  and  produced  the 
Reformation,  and  really  only  the  continuation  of  that 
movement.  But  there  is  nothing  new  in  the  ideas 
which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  the  movement,  nor  is  any 
reconcilement  possible  between  free  thought  and  tra- 
ditional authority.  One  or  other  will  have  to  suc- 
cumb after  a  struggle  of  unknown  duration,  which 
will  have  as  side  issues  vast  political  and  social 
troubles.  I  have  no  more  doubt  that  free  thought 
will  win  in  the  long-run  than  I  have  that  I  sit  here 
writing  to  you,  or  that  this  free  thought  will  organise 
itself  into  a  coherent  system,  embracing  human  life 
and  the  world  as  one  harmonious  whole.  But  this 
organisation  will  be  the  work  of  generations  of  men, 
and  those  who  further  it  most  will  be  those  who  teach 
men  to  rest  in  no  lie,  and  to  rest  in  no  verbal  delu- 
sions. I  may  be  able  to  help  a  little  in  this  direction 
— perhaps  I  may  have  helped  already.1 

Until  his  retirement,  twelve  years  afterwards,  that 
help  was,  perforce,  rendered  only  fitfully  ;  but,  once 
master  of  his  time,  Huxley  said  that  whether  it  was 

1 1.  397- 
158 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  159 

long  or  short,  he  should  devote  it  to  the  work  out- 
lined in  the  papers  on  the  "  Evolution  of  Theology." 1 
There  was  to  be  no  truce  with  "  that  ecclesiastical 
spirit,  that  clericalism,  which  is  the  deadly  enemy  of 
science."  The  battle  had  gone  on,  intermittently, 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  A  fortnight  after  the 
famous  duel  with  Wilberforce,  when  writing  to 
Hooker  about  a  proposed  scientific  quarterly,  Huxley 
jocosely  said  that  its  tone  would  be  "  mildly  episco- 
pophagous,"2  and  in  1889  he  asks  Professor  Ray 
Lankester  if  he  sees  "  any  chance  of  educating  the 
white  corpuscles  of  the  human  race  to  destroy  the 
theological  bacteria  which  are  bred  in  parsons."3 
The  author  of  Lay  Sermons,  let  it  be  said,  had  the 
making  of  a  preacher  in  him.  In  the  fragment  of 
autobiography  reprinted  in  the  first  volume  of  the 
Collected  Essays,  he  tells  how  in  early  childhood  he 
turned  his  pinafore  wrong  side  forwards  to  represent  a 
surplice,  and  held  forth  to  his  mother's  kitchenmaids. 
And  the  impression  of  his  homiletic  gifts  has  sly  ref- 
erence in  Bishop  Thirlwall's  Letters  to  a  Friend,* 
when,  speaking  of  the  Metaphysical  Society  (founded 
in  1869),  he  says  that  "among  the  contributors  to  its 
proceedings  have  been  Archbishop  Huxley  and  Pro- 
fessor Manning." 

'  Coll.  Essays,  iv.  chap.  viii.  *  I.  210. 

» II.  234.  «P.  317- 


160  HUXLEY 

Polemics,  as  Huxley  said,  "  are  always  more  or 
less  an  evil."  But  the  lukewarmness  which  lets  error 
and  corruption  pursue  their  baneful  course  is  a  greater 
evil.  And  in  the  questions  at  issue  between  the  ex- 
ponents of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  and  the  defend- 
ers of  orthodoxy  and  privilege  there  was  no  place  for 
indifference  or  compromise.  It  was  guerre  a  outrance. 
The  supremacy  of  clericalism  involves  the  thraldom 
of  the  mind,  because  its  submission  to  an  authority 
claiming  supernatural  origin,  and,  therefore,  one  not 
to  be  questioned,  save  at  the  soul's  peril,  was  de- 
manded. In  ordinary  matters,  the  claimant  to  author- 
ity submits  his  credentials,  on  the  verification  of  which 
his  claim  is  admitted  or  rejected.  And  in  matters  of 
such  high  import  as  the  beliefs  which  rule  a  man's 
life,  it  would  seem  that  the  same  method  should  apply. 
Yet  the  notion  is  widespread,  even  among  intelligent 
persons,  that  the  credentials  required  in  mundane 
things  are  not  to  be  demanded  in  what  are  deemed 
higher  things.  The  spiritual  "  powers  that  be  " — 
bishops,  priests,  and  deacons — "  are  ordained  of  God," 
and  the  documents  on  which  their  claims  are  based 
are  exempt  from  scrutiny.  The  prevalence  of  such  a 
notion  is  explicable  only  by  the  fact  that  the  majority 
of  people  govern  their  workaday  lives  on  principles 
different  from  those  which  operate  in  the  creeds  which 
they  profess.  They  rely,  in  lazy  acquiescence,  upon 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  l6l 

the  assurances  of  the  official  defenders  of  the  faith 
that  the  "  Church's  one  foundation "  remains  un- 
shaken. "  Their  faith,"  in  the  words  of  Professor 
W.  James,  "  is  faith  in  some  one  else's  faith,  and  in 
the  greatest  matters  this  is  most  the  case."  For  in- 
quiry involves  effort,  and  there  is  ease  in  travelling 
along  the  line  of  least  resistance. 

In  opposition,  wide  as  the  poles  asunder,  to  this, 

the  improver  of  natural  knowledge  absolutely  refuses 
to  acknowledge  authority,  as  such.  For  him,  scepti- 
cism is  the  highest  of  duties  ;  blind  faith  the  one  un- 
pardonable sin.  And  it  cannot  be  otherwise,  for 
every  great  advance  in  natural  knowledge  has  involved- 
the  absolute  rejection  of  authority,  the  cherishing  of 
the  keenest  scepticism,  the  annihilation  of  the  spirit 
of  blind  faith ;  and  the  most  ardent  votary  of  science 
holds  his  firmest  convictions,  not  because  the  men  he 
most  venerates  hold  them,  not  because  their  verity  is 
testified  by  portents  and  wonders  ;  but  because  his  ex- 
perience teaches  him  that  whenever  he  chooses  to 
bring  these  convictions  into  contact  with  their  primary 
source,  Nature — whenever  he  thinks  fit  to  test  them 
by  appealing  to  experiment  and  to  observation — Na- 
ture will  confirm  them.  The  man  of  science  has 
learned  to  believe  in  justification,  not  by  faith,  but  by 
verification.1 

And  it  was  because  clericalism  demanded  accept- 
ance of  its  claims  in  "  blind  faith "  that  Huxley 
would  make  no  terms  with  it. 

1  Coll.  E-ssays,  i.  pp.  40,  41. 


162  HUXLEY 

u  I  am  very  glad,"  he  writes  to  a  correspondent, 
"  that  you  see  the  importance  of  doing  battle  with  the 
clericals.  I  am  astounded  at  the  narrowness  of  view 
of  many  of  our  colleagues  on  this  point !  They  shut 
their  eyes  to  the  obstacles  which  clericalism  raises  in 
every  direction  against  scientific  ways  of  thinking, 
which  are  even  more  important  than  scientific  discov- 
eries. 

u  I  desire  that  the  next  generation  may  be  less  fet- 
tered by  the  gross  and  stupid  superstitions  of  ortho- 
doxy than  mine  has  been."  l 

He  observed  that  the  conversion  of  a  man  into  a 
"  clerk  in  holy  orders  "  was  not  attended  with  any  ad- 
dition to  his  intelligence.  On  the  contrary,  it  leads 
to  the  cramping  of  his  intellect,  since  at  a  fluent  pe- 
riod of  life,  when  he  is  on  the  threshold  of  its  problems, 
he  is  required  to  stunt  the  further  development  of  his 
mind  by  declaring  that  he  accepts  certain  beliefs  as 
final.2  Nor  does  the  clothing  him  with  a  shovel-hat, 
apron,  and  gaiters  "  in  the  smallest  degree  augment 
such  title  to  respect  as  his  opinions  may  intrinsically 
possess."3  The  emphasising  of  this  in  the  case  of 

1 II.  234. 

*"  If  the  clergy  are  bound  down,  and  the  laity  unbound ;  if  the 
teacher  may  not  seek  the  Truth,  and  the  taught  may ;  if  the  Church 
puts  the  Bible  in  the  hand  of  one  as  a  living  spirit  and  in  the  hand 
of  the  other  as  a  dead  letter — what  is  to  come  of  it  ?  I  love  the 
Church  of  England.  But  what  is  to  become  of  such  a  monstrous 
system,  such  a  Godless  lie  as  this?"  (To  Professor  Dawkins, 
1862.)— Letters  of  (the  then  Rev.)  John  Richard  Green,  p.  no. 

»  Coll.  Essays,  i.  p.  249 ;  and  see  Morley's  Diderot,  ii.  p.  50 
(note). 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  163 

bishops  was  the  more  necessary  because  the  degree 
of  importance  with  which  the  lay  mind  invests  any 
statement  by  a  cleric  is  regulated  by  his  position  in 
the  Church.  Huxley's  "  episcopophagy  "  took  hu- 
morous form  in  the  story  of  a  country  school  lad  who 
came  near  the  boundary-line  in  an  examination,  one 
of  his  blunders  consisting  in  putting  the  mitral  valve, 
so-called  from  its  resemblance  to  a  mitre,  on  the  right 
side  of  the  heart  instead  of  on  the  left  side.  "  On 
appeal,  Huxley  let  him  through,  observing,  l  Poor 
little  beggar,  I  never  got  them  (the  valves)  correctly 
myself  until  I  reflected  that  a  bishop  was  never  in  the 
right.' " l 

In  opening  the  campaign,  Huxley  did  not  waste 
powder  and  shot  on  that  irreconcilable  enemy  of 
knowledge  and  the  liberty  which  is  its  fruit,  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  "  the  one  great  spiritual 
organisation  which  is  able  to  resist,  and  must,  as  a 
matter  of  life  and  death,  resist  the  progress  of  science 
and  modern  civilisation." 2  He  divided  the  clergy  of 
the  Established  Church  into  three  sections :  "  an  im- 
mense body  who  are  ignorant,  and  speak  out ;  a  small 
proportion  who  know  and  are  silent ;  and  a  minute 
minority  who  know  and  speak  according  to  their 
knowledge."  Only  with  the  last-named  had  he  any- 
thing in  common ;  but  his  intellectual  honesty  caused 
1  II.  415.  *  Coll.  Essays,  iii.  p.  I2O. 


164  HUXLEY 

him  to  sympathise  less  with  the  "half-and-half  senti- 
mental school,"  represented  by  divines  of  the  type  of 
Dean  Farrar,  than  "  with  thoroughgoing  orthodoxy," 
as  represented  by  the  late  Mr.  Spurgeon.  Of  one 
and  all  of  them  it  may  be  said  that  his  thoughts  were 
not  their  thoughts,  nor  his  ways  their  ways.  He 
dealt  with  facts ;  they  played  with  phrases.  They 
acted  as  if  "  the  analysis  of  terms  is  the  right  way  of 
knowledge,  and  mistook  the  multiplication  of  proposi- 
tions for  the  discovery  of  fresh  truth." l  And  he 
thought  them  lacking  in  straightforwardness.  His 
conversation  was  "  Yea,  yea,"  or  "  Nay,  nay  "  ;  theirs 
was  evasive,  or  qualifying,  when  a  direct  question  was 
put  to  them.  To  him  they  seemed  to  confuse  much 
and  to  explain  nothing.  And  he  felt  that  if  men  of 
science  have  not  lightened  our  darkness  concerning 
many  things,  theologians  have  only  deepened  it.  To 
mix  with  them  was  to  inhale  a  relaxing  air  wherein 
the  fibres  of  veracity  were  loosened. 

Some  time  before  his  death,  the  decay  of  dogmatic 
theology,  which  a  changed  intellectual  atmosphere  had 
brought  about,  was  followed  by  a  revival  of  sacerdotal- 
ism, the  force  of  which  has  increased  rather  than 
abated.  The  result  is  a  general  materialising  of 
"aids  to  faith."  Churches  and  services  are  more 
ornate ;  the  sensuous  stimuli  of  music,  incense,  and 
1  Kousseau,  by  John  Morley,  ii.  p.  338. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  165 

colour  are  brought  into  play ;  greater  stress  is  laid  on 
the  importance  of  baptismal  and  other  sacramental 
rites,  with  the  consequent  aggrandisement  of  the  sac- 
erdotalist  as  their  divinely  authorised  administrator. 
The  emotions  have  unwholesome  excitation ;  the  rea- 
son is  drugged.  A  sermon — if  it  be  not  a  sleeping- 
draught — makes  appeals  to  the  intellect ;  it  may 
convert,  or  it  may  fail  to  convince.  But  a  rite 
requires  unquestioning  acceptance  of  its  supernatural 
obligation  and  nature  as  the  condition  of  its  efficacy. 
To  partake  in  it  demands  no  mental  effort.  This 
thaumaturgy  in  religion  has  its  correlatives  in  the 
pseudo-mysticism  of  the  present  day,  as  in  the  spuri- 
ous remedies  of  "  Christian  Science  "  for  diseases ;  in 
the  trickeries  of  spiritualism,  whose  phenomena,  were 
they  true,  would,  as  Huxley  said,  "  furnish  an  addi- 
tional argument  against  suicide  "  ; '  in  the  charlatanry 
of  palmistry,  astrology,  and  other  quackeries,  eviden- 
cing how  superficial  are  the  changes  in  human  nature. 
"  So  little  trouble,"  says  Thucydides,  "  do  men  take 
in  search  after  truth ;  so  readily  do  they  accept  what- 
ever comes  first  to  hand."2 

Huxley  was  well  equipped  in  historical  knowledge. 
When  Dr.  St.  George  Mivart  cited  Suarez  and  other 
schoolmen  in  his  criticisms  on  the  Origin  of  Species, 

1  I.  420;  and  see  Coll.  Essays,  v.  pp.  341,  342. 

2  I.  20  (Jowett's  Trans.). 


1 66  HUXLEY 

he  found  his  match  in  Huxley.  The  outlines  of  the 
course  of  events  following  the  death  of  Jesus,  which 
he  gives  in  his  essays  on  the  "  Evolution  of  Theol- 
ogy," show  that  he  knew  ecclesiastical  history  better 
than  many  ecclesiastics  themselves,  for  these  too 
often  know  it  only  in  the  idealised  or  partisan  forms 
presented  by  orthodox  historians.  No  thoughtful 
student  of  the  past,  with  all  its  cross-currents  and 
complexities,  will  make  the  shameful  story  of  religious 
wars  and  persecutions  an  occasion  of  reproach  against 
the  Churches  of  to-day.  Humanity  has  a  terrible  in- 
dictment against  theology,  but  the  charge  cannot  be 
laid  at  the  door  of  our  contemporaries.  Neverthe- 
less, in  the  degree  that  the  Church  has  not  purged 
herself  of  the  old  Adam  of  the  anti-progressive 
spirit,  she  stands  condemned  before  the  modern  world, 
and  with  no  such  plea  as  antiquity  might  offer.  Her 
condemnation  is  complete.  Taking  history  no  farther 
back  than  the  last  century,  it  will  be  found  that  there 
was  not  a  movement,  political,  social,  or  intellectual, 
having  as  its  aim  the  bettering  of  the  condition  of  the 
people,  which  she  did  not  oppose  tooth  and  nail.  She 
lifted  no  voice  against  the  barbaric  criminal  code 
under  which,  well  within  the  nineteenth  century,  two 
hundred  offences  were  punishable  with  death  ;  '  her 

1  OLD  BAILEY — William  Keep,  a  lad  of  fourteen  years  of  age, 
was  indicted  for  stealing  a  Bank  of  England  note  out  of  a  letter 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  167 

bishops  opposed  the  measures  for  the  abolition  of 
theological  tests  for  public  offices,  for  the  removal  of 
disabilities  on  Roman  Catholics,  Jews,  and  Dissenters; 
in  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  British  possessions,  and 
in  the  reform  of  the  incredibly  horrible  state  of 
prisons,  and  of  the  inhuman  treatment  of  lunatics  in 
this  kingdom,  she  took  no  initiative;  she  fought 
against  unsectarian  elementary  education ;  she  still 
wages  bitter  war  to  enforce  the  teaching  of  her  dis- 
credited dogmas ;  and,  to  her  even  greater  shame, 
fans  and  fosters  the  spirit  of  militarism  in  temples  on 
whose  walls  are  inscribed,  "  On  earth  peace,  and 
goodwill  towards  men."  And,  withal,  trading  on  the 
ignorance  of  the  multitude,  her  ministers  have  the 
audacity  to  claim  credit  for  the  removal  of  unjust  and 
brutal  measures  from  the  statute-book  of  the  realm, 
and  for  the  general  spread  of  human itarianism ; 
whereas  it  is  solely  to  the  development  of  sympathy 
born  of  knowledge  that  these  are  due,  The  Church 
has  tardily  followed  where  these  have  led.  For  these 
reasons,  written  clear  on  the  page  of  history,  Huxley 
called  the  "  ecclesiastical  spirit  the  deadly  enemy  of 
science." 

But   for  the  confusion  which  men  make  between 

which  had  come  into  his  possession  in  consequence  of  his  having 
been  employed  in  the  General  Post  Office  as  a  sorter  of  letters. 
The   jury   found    the    prisoner — Guilty — Death. —  Times, 
Nov.  I,  1801.     The  death-sentences  were  sometimes  commuted. 


l68  HUXLEY 

the  letter  and  the  spirit  it  should  be  needless  to  say 
that  Huxley  had  no  quarrel — who  can  have  ? — with 
religion,  defining  this  as  "a  consciousness  of  the 
limitations  of  man  and  a  sense  of  an  open  secret 
which  is  impenetrable,"  l  and  as  "  the  reverence  and 
love  for  an  ethical  ideal,  and  the  desire  to  realise  that 
ideal  in  life  which  every  man  ought  to  feel." 2  The 
ideal  will  be  low  or  high  according  to  the  standard 
reached  by  a  community,  but,  whatever  that  standard 
may  be,  it  represents  the  attitude  towards  unseen  or 
envisaged  powers  which  affect  men  deeply  and  con- 
stantly. No  religion,  however  repellent  it  may  be  to 
refined  natures,  has  taken  root  which  did  not  adjust 
itself  to,  and  answer,  some  need  of  the  human  heart. 
And  the  measure  of  our  knowledge  of  the  various 
faiths  of  mankind  will  be  the  measure  of  our  sym- 
pathy. What  quarrel  the  evolutionist  may  have  is 
with  the  letter  of  theology,  "  which  killeth,"  not  with 
the  spirit  of  religion,  which  "giveth  life."  As 
Huxley  says : — 

The  antagonism  between  science  and  religion, 
about  which  we  hear  so  much,  appears  to  me  to  be 
purely  factitious — fabricated,  on  the  one  hand,  by 
short-sighted  religious  people  who  confound  a  certain 
branch  of  science,  theology,  with  religion  ;  and,  on 
the  other,  by  equally  short-sighted  scientific  people 
who  forget  that  science  takes  for  its  province  only 

»  Coll.  Essays,  i.  p.  33.  » Ib.,  v.  p.  250. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  169 

that  which  is  susceptible  of  clear  intellectual  com- 
prehension. .  .  .  The  antagonism  of  science  is 
to  the  heathen  survivals  and  the  bad  philosophy  under 
which  religion  herself  is  often  well-nigh  crushed. 
And  I  trust  that  this  antagonism  will  never  cease  ;  but 
that,  to  the  end  of  time,  true  science  will  continue  to 
fulfil  one  of  her  most  beneficent  functions,  that  of 
relieving  men  from  the  burden  of  false  science, 
which  is  imposed  upon  them  in  the  name  of  Re- 
ligion.1 

Superfluous  to  add,  therefore,  that  Huxley  was  no 
iconoclast ;  no  man  who  is  imbued  with  the  spirit  of 
the  doctrine  of  evolution,  which  links  us  to  the  past 
as  its  products  and  finds  a  warrant  for  all  that  yet  has 
been,  can  be  that.  Regulation,  not  suppression,  of 
human  nature,  was  his  aim.  He  was  as  anxious  as 
any  defender  of  the  faith  can  be  that  religion  should 
"  bring  forth  the  peaceable  fruits  of  righteousness  "  ; 
his  care  was  to  afford  it  free  play  by  the  removal  of 
the  accretions  which  make  it  unlovely  and  a  reproach 
before  the  world.  In  an  address  delivered  as  far  back 
as  1871,  he  said  that  he  could 

conceive  the  existence  of  an  Established  Church 
which  should  be  a  blessing  to  the  community.  A 
Church  in  which,  week  by  week,  services  should  be 
devoted,  not  to  the  iteration  of  abstract  propositions 
in  theology,  but  to  the  setting  before  men's  minds  of 
an  ideal  of  true,  just,  and  pure  living ;  a  place  in 
which  those  who  are  weary  of  the  burden  of  daily 

i  Coll.  Essays,  iv.  pp.  1 60,  163. 


iyO  HUXLEY 

cares  should  find  a  moment's  rest  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  higher  life  which  is  possible  for  all,  though 
attained  by  so  few  ;  a  place  in  which  the  man  of  strife 
and  of  business  should  have  time  to  think  how  small, 
after  all,  are  the  rewards  he  covets  compared  with 
peace  and  charity.  Depend  upon  it,  if  such  a  Church 
existed,  no  one  would  seek  to  disestablish  it. ' 

And  he  not  only  looked  with  no  favour  upon 
criticism  that  is  wholly  destructive ;  he  demurred, 
"  both  as  a  matter  of  principle  and  one  of  policy,  to  a 
great  deal  of  what  appears  as  l  free  thought '  litera- 
ture." 

Heterodox  ribaldry  disgusts  me,  I  confess,  rather 
more  than  orthodox  fanaticism.  It  is  at  once  so 
easy ;  so  stupid ;  such  a  complete  anachronism  in 
England,  and  so  thoroughly  calculated  to  disgust  and 
repel  the  very  thoughtful  and  serious  people  whom  it 
ought  to  be  the  great  aim  to  attract.  Old  Noll  knew 
what  he  was  about  when  he  said  that  it  was  of  no  use 
to  try  to  fight  the  gentlemen  of  England  with  tapsters 
and  serving-men.  It  is  quite  as  hopeless  to  fight 
Christianity  with  scurrility.  We  want  a  regiment  of 
Ironsides.2 

The  mode  of  attack  thus  rightly  censured  is  well- 
nigh  obsolete.  The  old  fatuous  alternatives,  which 
presented  Jesus  as  a  divine  being  or  an  impostor,  and 
the  Bible  as  an  inspired  book  or  a  forgery,  rarely 
enter  into  modern  methods  of  controversy.  The  age 
may  not  be  very  earnest,  but  it  is  not  flippant,  in 

1  lb.t  i.  p.  284.  *  II.  331. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  IJI 

these  matters.  Beliefs  are  no  longer  only  attacked, 
they  are  explained.  Religions  are  no  longer  treated 
as  wholly  true  or  as  wholly  false,  as  the  inventions  of 
designing  priests  or  as  of  supernatural  origin ;  but  as 
the  product  of  man's  crude  speculations  concerning 
himself  and  his  surroundings,  and  of  his  spiritual 
needs,  no  matter  in  what  repulsive  form  these  are  sat- 
isfied. And  a  survey  shows  how  each  one,  with  its 
outcome  in  creed  and  ritual,  falls  into  line  with  the 
processes  of  evolution ;  how,  like  organisms,  all 
spring  from  common  elements ;  how,  like  these,  they 
bear  within  themselves  the  traces  of  their  stages  of 
development ;  how  natural  selection  acts  upon  them, 
their  survival  depending  on  their  power  of  adaptation, 
and  how,  this  failing,  they  perish  and  become  fos- 
silised in  the  strata  of  obsolete  creeds. 

Beyond  the  general  remark  that  religion  arises, 
41  like  all  other  kinds  of  knowledge,  out  of  the  action 
and  interaction  of  man's  mind  with  that  which  is  not 
in  man's  mind,  and  takes  the  intellectual  coverings 
of  Fetichism  or  Polytheism  ;  of  Theism  or  Atheism, 
of  Superstition  or  Rationalism,"  '  Huxley  refrained 
from  speculations  as  to  the  particular  primary  im- 
pulses which  gave  this  or  that  shape  to  it.  All  such 
speculations — and  history,  both  past  and  present,  has 
seen  many  of  them — are  foredoomed  to  failure,  be- 

1  Coll.  Essays,  i.  p.  138. 


172  HUXLEY 

cause  the  "Natural!  seed  of  Religion"  as  Hobbes 
calls  it, '  is  the  product  of  roots  that  lie  too  deep 
down  for  discovery.  They  are  intertwined  with 
man's  psychical  development;  they  are  fed  from  the 
same  sources  whence  arise  the  psychical  faculties  of 
animals ;  and  as  the  student  of  comparative  mythology 
and  comparative  theology  must  take  counsel  with  the 
anthropologist  and  folk-lorist,  so  must  all  of  them 
take  counsel  with  the  comparative  psychologist  and 
the  comparative  physiologist. 

In  such  spirit,  then,  Huxley  advanced  to  an  exam- 
ination of  the  "venerable  record  of  ancient  life,  mis- 
called a  book,"  2  on  which  clericalism  rests  its  claims 
and  its  creeds.  A  quarter  of  a  century  earlier  there 
had  been  talk  about  prosecuting  Jowett  for  the  heret- 
ical article  in  Essays  and  Reviews  wherein  he  laid 
down  what  seemed  the  irreverent  canon,  "  Interpret 
the  Scripture  like  any  other  book." 3  It  would  be 
difficult  to  say  in  what  other  way  the  Bible  could  be 
interpreted,  and,  since  1860,  the  comparative  method, 
which  has  yielded  valuable  results  in  all  departments 
of  research,  has  been  applied  unchallenged  to  the 
sacred  text : — 

From  my  present  point  of  view  [said  Huxley,  in 
the  opening  pages  of  his  essays  on  the  "  Evolution  of 

« Leviathan  :  "  Of  Man,"  ch.  xii.  pt.  i. 

«  Coll.  Essays,  iv.  p.  289.  »  P.  377  (1861  edition). 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  173 

Theology,"]  theology  is  regarded  as  a  natural  product 
of  the  operations  of  the  human  mind,  under  the  con- 
ditions of  its  existence,  just  as  any  other  branch  of 
science,  or  the  arts  of  architecture,  or  music,  or  paint- 
ing, are  such  products.  Like  them,  theology  has  a 
history.  Like  them  also,  it  is  to  be  met  with  in 
certain  simple  and  rudimentary  forms;  and  these  can 
be  connected  by  a  multitude  of  gradations,  which 
exist,  or  have  existed,  among  people  of  various  ages 
and  races,  with  the  most  highly  developed  theologies 
of  past  and  present  times. 

We  are  all  likely  to  be  more  familiar  with  the  theo- 
logical history  of  the  Israelites  than  with  that  of  any 
other  nation.  We  may  therefore  fitly  make  it  the 
first  object  of  our  studies ;  and  it  will  be  convenient 
to  commence  with  that  period  which  lies  between  the 
invasion  of  Canaan  and  the  early  days  of  the  mon- 
archy, and  answers  to  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  cen- 
turies B.  c.,  or  thereabouts.  The  evidence  on  which 
any  conclusion  as  to  the  nature  of  Israelitic  theology 
in  those  days  must  be  based  is  wholly  contained  in 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures— an  agglomeration  of  docu- 
ments which  certainly  belong  to  very  different  ages, 
but  of  the  exact  dates  and  authorship  of  any  one  of 
which  (except  perhaps  a  few  of  the  prophetical  wri- 
tings) there  is  no  evidence,  either  internal  or  external, 
so  far  as  I  can  discover,  of  such  a  nature  as  to  justify 
more  than  a  confession  of  ignorance,  or,  at  most,  an 
approximate  conclusion.  In  these  we  have  the  strati- 
fied deposits  (often  confused,  and  even  with  their 
natural  order  inverted)  left  by  the  stream  of  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  life  of  Israel  during  many  centuries. 
And,  embedded  in  these  strata,  there  are  numerous 
remains  of  forms  of  thought  which  once  lived,  and 
which,  though  often  unfortunately  mere  fragments, 
are  of  priceless  value  to  the  anthropologist.  Our  task 
is  to  rescue  these  from  their  relatively  unimportant 


174  HUXLEY 

surroundings,  and  by  careful  comparison  with  existing 
forms  of  theology  to  make  the  dead  world  which  they 
record  live  again.  In  other  words,  our  problem  is 
palsontological,  and  the  method  pursued  must  be  the 
same  that  is  employed  in  dealing  with  other  fossil 


From  these  rich  deposits  of  ancient  life-forms  Hux- 
ley chose  that  which  occurs  in  the  twenty-eighth  chap- 
ter of  the  first  book  of  Samuel,  and  which  tells  the 
story  of  Saul's  visit  to  the  witch  of  Endor. 

On  the  eve  of  a  decisive  battle  between  the  Israel- 
ites and  the  Philistines,  Saul,  in  despair  because 
Jahveh  had  "  answered  him  not,  neither  by  dreams, 
nor  by  Urim,  nor  by  prophets,"  sought  counsel  (despite 
his  having  banished  wizards  and  their  kin)  of  a  woman 
"  that  had  a  familiar  spirit,"  literally,  "  a  woman  mis- 
tress of  0£,"  which  word  means  primitively  a  leather 
bottle,  such  as  a  wine-skin,  and  is  applied  alike  to  the 
necromancer  and  to  the  spirit  evoked.  It  may  be 
compared  with  the  sacred  snake-skin  bags  or  the 
magic  drums  which  form  part  of  the  apparatus  of  the 
Red  Indian  medicine-men  or  sorcerers,  the  use  of  Ob 
being  probably  suggested  "  by  the  likeness  of  the  hol- 
low sound  emitted  by  a  half-empty  skin  when  struck 
to  the  sepulchral  tones  in  which  the  oracles  of  the 
evoked  spirits  were  uttered  by  the  medium."  2  Dis- 

1  Coll.  Essays,  iv.  pp.  288,  289. 

8  Coll.  Essays,  iv.  p.  295.  For  various  meanings  of  Ob  see  Art. 
"  Divination  "  in  Encyclopedia  Biblica. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  175 

guising  himself,  Saul  sought  the  woman,  who,  at  his 
request,  called  up  the  prophet  Samuel  from  Sheol,  the 
under-world.  The  apparition  is  visible  to  her,  but 
invisible  to  the  king  (who  had  thrown  off  his  disguise), 
to  whose  inquiry  she  replies,  "  I  see  Elohim  (god  or 
gods)  coming  up  out  of  the  earth."  A  conversation, 
through  the  woman  as  medium,  follows  between  Saul 
and  Samuel,  who,  reproaching  the  king  for  disquieting 
him,  says,  "  Jahveh  will  deliver  Israel  also  with  thee 
into  the  hands  of  the  Philistines,  and  to-morrow  shalt 
thou  and  thy  sons  be  with  me  "  (/'.  *.,  in  Sheol). 

The  story  throws  a  flood  of  light  upon  ancient 
Israelitic  belief  in  necromancy  and  other  forms  of 
magic,  and  in  the  abode  of  the  dead.  This  last  had 
nothing  in  common  with  the  elaborate  conception  of 
a  future  state  of  rewards  and  punishments  which  was 
incorporated  into  Hebrew  eschatology  during  the  Cap- 
tivity. The  belief  in  Sheol  may  be  equated  with  that 
of  the  Greek  belief  in  Hades,  both  these  being  sur- 
vivals of  barbaric  ideas  about  the  fate  of  the  departed. 
"  The  small  and  great  are  there,  and  the  servant  is 
free  from  his  master."  The  ancient  Israelites  thought 
that  a  man  consists  of  body  and  soul,  and  that  after 
death  the  soul  continued  to  exist  as  a  ghost  in  the 
under-world,  whence  it  could  be  summoned  by  the  art 
of  the  necromancer,  retaining,  on  its  appearance,  some 
shadowy  outline  in  form  and  feature  by  which  it  could 


176  HUXLEY 

be  identified.  As  for  Elohim,  a  term  translated 
"  god  "  (in  contrast  to  Jahveh  or  Jehovah,  translated 
44  Lord  "),  that  word,  as  was  seen  above,  is  applied  to 
ghosts,  and  also  to  various  grades  of  gods.  Its  use 
by  the  woman  is  of  importance,  as  showing  that  the 
ghost  had  become  in  some  degree  deified,  a  process  of 
apotheosis  which  marks  the  beginnings  of  ancestor- 
worship.  The  existence  of  this  widespread  cult 
among  the  Israelites  is  evidenced  by  the  rude  human 
images  known  as  Teraphim.  The  reference  to  Urim 
shows  the  prevalence  of  divination.  The  Urim  and 
Thummim  appear  to  have  been  lots  which  were  car- 
.ried  by  the  high  priest  in  the  pocket  of  his  44  breast- 
plate," worn  on  the  ephod.  Besides  these,  there  are 
evidences  of  other  modes  of  ascertaining  the  will  of 
heaven,  as  by  rods,1  pointless  arrows,2  and  dreams,3 
while  the  important  part  played  by  sacrifices,  usually 
burnt-offerings,  in  old  Israelitic  ritual,  is  too  well 
known  to  need  more  than  allusion  here. 


The  theological  system  thus  outlined  offers  to  the 
anthropologist  no  feature  which  is  devoid  of  a  par- 
allel in  the  known  theologies  of  other  races  of  man- 
kind, even  of  those  who  inhabit  parts  of  the  world 
most  remote  from  Palestine.  And  the  foundation  of 
the  whole,  the  ghost-theory,  is  exactly  that  theological 

i  Hosea  iv.  12.  »  Ezekiel  xxi.  23. 

*  Genesis  xx.  3,  xxxi.  24 ;  Judges  vii.  13,  etc. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  177 

speculation  which   is  the  most  widely  spread  of  all, 
and  the  most  deeply  rooted  among  uncivilised  men.1 

There  is  nothing  new  in  the  foregoing  to  readers 
of  Kuenen's  great  work  on  the  Religion  of  Israel,  nor 
to  those  who  have  compared  the  archaic  elements  in 
the  Bible  with  the  details  of  belief  and  ritual  among 
the  lower  races  given  in  books  of  the  type  of  Tylor's 
Primitive  Culture  and  Frazer's  Golden  Bough.  But, 
apart  from  the  need  of  restating  the  obvious,  Hux- 
ley's purpose  and  skill  were  shown  in  his  focussing 
one  or  more  salient  features  of  the  old  Israelitic 
theology  for  comparison  with  active  beliefs  among 
lower  races  of  whom  he  knew  something  at  first  hand, 
or  concerning  whom  he  had  cogent  testimony.  For 
the  first  of  these  he  drew  on  his  Rattlesnake  experi- 
ences. In  December,  1848,  that  vessel  was  anchored 
off"  Mount  Ernest,  an  island  in  Torres  Straits.  Hux- 
ley and  a  shipmate,  whom  he  calls  B.,  went  ashore, 
and  in  course  of  time  became  intimate  with  an  old 
native  named  Paouda.  The  old  man  took  to  B.  be- 
cause he  believed  him  to  be  his  father-in-law. 

His  grounds  for  that  singular  conviction  were  very 
remarkable.  We  had  made  a  long  stay  at  Cape  York 
hard  by  :  and  in  accordance  with  a  theory  which  is 
widely  spread  among  the  Australians,  that  white  men 
are  the  incarnated  spirits  of  black  men,  B.  was  held 
to  be  the  ghost  of  a  certain  Mount  Ernest  native,  one 
1  Coll.  Essays,  iv.  p.  317. 


178  HUXLEY 

Antarki,  who  had  lately  died,  on  the  ground  of  some 
real  or  fancied  resemblance  to  the  latter.  Now  Paouda 
had  taken  to  wife  a  daughter  of  Antarki's,  named 
Domani,  and  as  soon  as  B.  informed  him  that  he  was 
the  ghost  of  Antarki,  Paouda  at  once  admitted  the  re- 
lationship and  acted  upon  it.  For,  as  all  the  women 
on  the  island  had  hidden  away  in  fear  of  the  ship,  and 
we  were  anxious  to  see  what  they  were  like,  B. 
pleaded  pathetically  with  Paouda  that  it  would  be  very 
unkind  not  to  let  him  see  his  daughter  and  grandchil- 
dren. After  a  good  deal  of  hesitation  and  the  exac- 
tion of  pledges  of  deep  secrecy,  Paouda  consented  to 
take  B.,  and  myself  as  B.'s  friend,  to  see  Domani 
and  the  three  daughters,  by  whom  B.  was  received 
quite  as  one  of  the  family,  while  I  was  courteously 
welcomed  on  his  account.  This  scene  made  an  im- 
pression upon  me  which  is  not  yet  effaced.  It  left  no 
question  on  my  mind  of  the  sincerity  of  the  strange 
ghost-theory  of  these  savages,  and  of  the  influence 
which  their  belief  has  on  their  practical  life.1 

For  the  second,  Huxley  cites  Mariner's  Account  of 
the  Natives  of  the  Tonga  Islands  in  the  South  Pacific 
Ocean,  published  in  1816.  When  he  was  quite  a 
youth  William  Mariner  joined  the  Port-au-Prince,  a 
private  ship  of  war  commissioned  to  cruise  for  prizes 
in  certain  latitudes,  and,  failing  success  in  that,  to 
search  for  whales.2  Her  fate  was  to  be  boarded, 
plundered,  and  destroyed  by  the  natives  of  Lafooga, 
one  of  the  Tonga  islands,  where  Mariner,  to  whom 
Finow,  the  chief,  had  taken  a  fancy,  spent  four  years 

1  Coll.  Essays,  iv.  p.  317,  318. 
*  Introd.  to  Mariner,  i.  p.  xxv. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  179 

before  making  his  escape.  He  learned  the  language 
and  lived  the  life  of  the  islanders,  familiarising  him- 
self with  their  beliefs  and  customs.  Concerning  their 
theology,  he  says  : — 

The  human  soul,  after  its  separation  from  the  body, 
is  termed  a  hotooa  (a  god  or  spirit ;  hotooa  is  the  same 
as  the  better-known  atua),  and  is  believed  to  exist  in 
the  shape  of  the  body ;  to  have  the  same  propensities 
as  during  life,  but  to  be  corrected  by  a  more  enlight- 
ened understanding,  by  which  it  readily  distinguishes 
good  from  evil,  truth  from  falsehood,  right  from 
wrong ;  having  the  same  attributes  as  the  original 
gods,  but  in  a  minor  degree,  and  having  its  dwelling 
forever  in  the  happy  regions  of  Bolotoo,  holding  the 
same  rank  in  regard  to  other  souls  as  during  this  life : 
it  has,  however,  the  power  of  returning  to  Tonga  to 
inspire  priests,  relations,  or  others,  or  to  appear  in 
dreams  to  those  it  wishes  to  admonish ;  and  some- 
times to  the  external  eye  in  the  form  of  a  ghost  or 
apparition ;  but  this  power  of  reappearance  at  Tonga 
particularly  belongs  to  the  souls  of  chiefs  than  of 
matabooles  (a  kind  of  "  clients  "  in  the  Roman  sense, 
as  Huxley  explains  in  a  footnote).1 

The  "atuas  "  include  gods  good  and  evil,  home  and 
foreign,  as  well  as  the  souls .  of  men,  so  that  they 
"  are  exactly  equivalent "  to  the  "  Elohim  "  of  the 
old  Israelites,  while  the  description  of  the  incidents 
attending  the  "  inquiry  of"  an  atua,  as  the  paroxysm 
and  excitation  of  the  priest,  correspond  "with  the 

1  Coll.  Essays,  iv.  p.  323 ;  and  Mariner,  ii.  p.  99  ff.  (edition 
1827). 


l8o  HUXLEY 

manifestations  of  abnormal  mental  states  among  our- 
selves, and  furnish  a  most  instructive  commentary 
npon  the  story  of  the  witch  of  Endor."  Bolotoo 
answers  to  Sheol ;  among  the  several  hundred  gods 
recognised  by  "  the  Tongan  theologians "  one  was 
greater  than  all,  as  among  the  Israelites  Jahveh  was 
"god  of  gods."  And  both  in  Palestine  and  the 
Pacific  Ocean  the  anger  of  the  deities  was  believed 
to  be  manifest  as  strongly  in  the  case  of  neglect  of 
ritual  as  for  offences  against  the  moral  law.  The  re- 
sult of  these  and  other  comparisons  noted  in  the 
"  Evolution  of  Theology  "  is  to  show  how  little  is 
left  to  choose  between  them. 

One  may  read  from  the  beginning  of  the  book  of 
Judges  to  the  end  of  the  books  of  Samuel  without  dis- 
covering that  the  old  Israelites  had  a  moral  standard 
which  differs,  in  any  essential  respect  (except  perhaps 
in  regard  to  the  chastity  of  unmarried  women)  from 
that  of  the  Tongans.  Gideon,  Jephthah,  Samson, 
and  David  are  strong-handed  men,  some  of  whom  are 
not  outdone  by  any  Polynesian  chieftain  in  the  matter 
of  murder  and  treachery.  •  •  .  But  it  is  surely 
needless  to  carry  the  comparison  further.  Out  of  the 
abundant  evidence  at  command  I  think  that  sufficient 
has  been  produced  to  furnish  ample  grounds  for  the 
belief  that  the  old  Israelites  of  the  time  of  Samuel  en- 
tertained theological  conceptions  which  were  on  a 
level  with  those  current  among  the  more  civilised  of 
the  Polynesian  islanders,  though  their  ethical  code  may 
possibly,  in  some  respects,  have  been  more  advanced.1 

1  Coll.  Essays,  iv.  pp.  340,  345. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  l8l 

Therefore,  to  whatever  high  spiritual  altitudes  the 
Israelites  attained,  and  however  distinctive  may  have 
been  their  genius  for  religion, — a  genius  which  shaped 
their  traditions,  whether  native  or  borrowed,  in  ac- 
cordance with  their  belief  in  their  special  mission  as 
instruments  and  witnesses  of  Jehovah  among  man- 
kind, and  which  inspired  their  prophets  to  utterances 
unsurpassed  in  grandeur  of  expression  and  in  loftiness 
of  moral  tone, — the  documents  of  their  religion  evi- 
dence that  they  passed  through  stages  of  develop- 
ment corresponding  to  those  of  other  races ;  stages 
of  crude  and  coarse  conceptions  of  the  gods,  attended 
by  a  bloody  ritual  and  a  low  morality. 

While  Huxley  was  busy  over  this  subject,  there 
appeared  the  article  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  to  the  invigo- 
rating effects  of  which  reference  was  made  on  page 
56.  In  his  notice  of  M.  Reville's  book  Mr.  Glad- 
stone took  exception  to  the  statement  that  while  the 
Creation  story  and  other  narratives  in  the  Pentateuch 
"  possess  a  value  of  the  highest  order,  they  are  not  to 
be  regarded  as  other  than  a  venerable  fragment,  well 
deserving  attention,  of  the  great  genesis  of  mankind." 
This  was  reducing  them  to  the  level  of  ordinary 
secular  history,  and  hence  Mr.  Gladstone  sought  to 
prove  that,  instead  of  "merely  a  lofty  poem  or  a 
skilfully  constructed  narrative,"  we  have,  in  the  He- 
brew cosmogony  and  all  that  follows  it,  "a  reve- 


1 82  HUXLEY 

lation  of  truth  from  God,"  and  the  "great  founda- 
tion-chapter of  the  entire  Scriptures,  New  as  well  as 
Old."  After  defending  the  astounding  theory  of  the 
creation  of  something  out  of  nothing,  he  contended 
that  the  fourfold  order  of  the  appearance  of  living 
things  set  forth  in  the  Hebrew  cosmogony  is  con- 
firmed by  "  natural  science."  He  cited  a  few  anti- 
quated authorities,  the  greatest  among  these  being 
Cuvier.  But,  as  Huxley  pointed  out  — 

Cuvier  has  been  dead  more  than  half  a  century ; 
and  the  palaeontology  of  our  day  is  related  to  that  of 
his  very  much  as  the  geography  of  the  sixteenth 
century  is  related  to  that  of  the  fourteenth.  Since 
1832,  when  Cuvier  died,  not  only  a  new  world,  but 
new  worlds  of  ancient  life,  have  been  discovered,  and 
those  who  have  most  faithfully  carried  on  the  work 
of  the  chief  founder  of  palaeontology  have  done  most 
to  invalidate  the  essentially  negative  grounds  of  his 
speculative  adherence  to  tradition.  If  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's latest  information  on  these  matters  is  derived 
from  the  famous  discourse  prefixed  to  the  "  Ossemens 
Fossiles"  I  can  understand  the  position  he  has  taken 
up ;  if  he  has  ever  opened  a  respectable  modern 
manual  of  palaeontology  or  geology,  I  cannot.  For 
the  facts  which  demolish  his  whole  argument  are  of 
the  commonest  notoriety.1 

Concerning  the  controversy,  "It  was  not,"  Sir 
Mountstuart  Grant-Duff  said,  "  so  much  a  battle  as  a 
massacre."  Nevertheless,  after  annihilation,  as  it 

1  Coll.  Essays,  iv.  p.  144. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  183 

seemed  to  the  onlooker,  by  Huxley's  intellectual 
dynamite,  Mr.  Gladstone  reappeared,  as  if  never  dis- 
turbed therefrom,  on  the  Impregnable  Rock  of  Holy 
Scripture,  as  he  called  it.  In  that  book  he  reaffirmed, 
in  ingenious  variation  of  phrase,  all  that  Huxley  had 
disproved  concerning  the  succession  of  life-forms, 
and,  passing  from  the  organic  to  the  inorganic,  con- 
tended that  "  the  nebular  theory  supplies  a  new  and 
remarkable  establishment  of  accord  between  natural 
science  on  the  one  hand  (so  far  as  its  reasoning  has 
proceeded)  and  the  Book  of  Genesis  on  the  other."  * 
Mr.  Gladstone  had  no  sympathy  with  the  invertebrate 
theologians  who  would  transfer  Christianity  from  a 
historical  to  a  psychological  base.  "We  are,"  he 
says,  "  professors  of  a  religion  which  rests  not  so 
much  on  abstract  principles  as  on  matters  of  fact, 
inseparable  from  the  revelation  itself."  Such  physical 
facts  are  the  Creation,  the  Incarnation,  the  Resur- 
rection.2 As  to  the  validity  of  these,  no  doubt  had 
ever  possessed  him.  He  writes  as  a  man  of  apparently 
open  mind,  but  throughout  life  every  avenue  had  been 
shut  against  the  admission  of  anything  telling  against 
preconceptions  which  were  theological  to  the  core. 

1  Impregnable  Rock  of  Holy   Scripture,  chap,   vi.,  "  On  Recent 
Corroborations  of  Scripture  from  the  Regions  of  History  and  Nat- 
ural Science." 

2  Impregnable  Rock  of  Holy  Scripture,  chap,  ii.,  "  The  Creation 
Story." 


184  HUXLEY 

Mr.  George  Russell  wrote  a  pamphlet  on  "  Mr. 
Gladstone's  Religious  Development."  It  should 
have  been  issued  in  blank,  for  Mr.  Gladstone  never 
had  any  such  development.  He  was  in  the  nineties 
what  he  was  in  the  thirties,  save  that  with  advancing 
years  he  attached  greater  importance  to  ritual  observ- 
ances. One  evidence  of  this  is  his  resignation  of 
membership  of  the  Folklore  Society  in  1896,  when 
the  Presidential  Address  of  that  year,  dealing  with 
the  significance  of  that  portion  of  Dr.  Frazer's 
Golden  Bough  which  treats  of  the  large  body  of  bar- 
baric rites  connected  with  "  eating  the  god,"  pointed 
out  the  relation  of  these  to  the  sacrament.  His 
whilom  colleague  and  brother-Churchman,  Lord  Sel- 
borne,  said  of  him  that  "he  was  too  readily  influenced 
by  opinions  which  fell  in  with  his  own  wishes  or 
feelings,  and  by  the  men  who  held  them,  and  was  im- 
patient of  the  dry  light  of  facts  when  facts  told  the 
other  way.  He  could  see  into  millstones  farther  than 
other  men,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he  had  a  wonder- 
ful power  of  not  seeing  what  he  did  not  like." ! 

The  facts  of  natural  science  were  accepted  by  him 
only  in  so  far  as  they  were  shown  to  be  in  accord 
with  the  statements  of  Scripture ;  and,  as  they  could 
not  be  ignored,  the  instruments  of  ambiguity  and 
evasiveness,  which  perform  their  disingenuous  work  in 
1  Memorials  :  Personal  and  Political,  1865-1895. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  185 

political  controversy,  were  employed  to  bring  these 
facts  into  seeming  harmony  with  revelation.  Hence 
the  serious  limitations  to  which  Mr.  John  Morley 
bore  witness  when  unveiling  .a  statue  to  Mr.  Glad- 
stone at  Manchester  in  October  last  year. 

Something  [he  says]  was  left  out  in  the  wide  circle 
of  his  interests  ;  natural  science  in  all  its  speculations 
and  extensions  and  increase  of  scientific  truth,  ex- 
tension of  scientific  methods — all  that  no  doubt  con- 
stitute the  central  activities,  the  intellectual  activities 
of  England  and  Europe  during  the  last  forty  years  of 
his  life — to  all  that  he  was  not  entirely  open.1 

I  remember  once  going  with  him  one  Sunday  after- 
noon to  pay  a  visit  to  Mr.  Darwin.  It  was  in  the 
seventies.  As  I  came  away  I  felt  that  no  impression 
had  reached  him  that  that  intellectual,  modest,  single- 
minded  lover  of  truth — that  searcher  of  the  secrets 
of  nature — was  one  who  from  his  Kentish  hilltop 
was  shaking  the  world.  But  the  omission  of  scien- 
tific interest  was  made  up  for.  The  thought  with 
which  he  rose  in  the  morning  and  went  to  rest  at 
night  was  of  the  universe  as  a  sublime  moral  theatre, 
on  which  the  Omnipotent  Dramaturgist  used  king- 
doms and  rulers,  laws  and  policies,  to  exhibit  a  sover- 
eign purpose  for  good,  to  light  up  what  I  may  call  the 
prose  of  politics  with  a  ray  from  the  Diviner  Mind, 
and  exalted  his  ephemeral  discourses  in  a  sort  of  visible 
relation  to  the  counsels  of  all  time. 

While  Mr.  Gladstone,  as  well-nigh  the  last  of  the 
old  school  of  reconcilers,  was  renewing  the  hopeless 

i  "  Of  natural  science  he  was  strangely  ignorant." — Mr.  Bryce, 
"  On  some  Traits  of  Mr.  Gladstone,"  Fortnightly  Review,  January, 
1902,  p.  13. 


1 86  HUXLEY 

attempt  to  harmonise,  by  verbal  legerdemain,  Genesis 
and  Geology,  contending,  for  example,  that  the  six 
days  meant  "  six  chapters  in  the  history  of  the  crea- 
tion," liberal  theologians  were  surrendering  belief  in 
the  historical  character  of  the  so-called  "  Mosaic " 
writings. 

u  I  cannot  deny,"  said  Canon  Bonney,  speaking  at 
the  Church  Congress  held  in  1895  at  Norwich,  "that 
the  increase  of  scientific  knowledge  has  deprived  parts 
of  the  earlier  books  of  the  Bible  of  the  historical 
value  which  was  generally  attributed  to  them  by  our 
forefathers.  The  story  of  the  creation  in  Genesis, 
unless  we  play  fast  and  -loose  either  with  words  or 
with  science,  cannot  be  brought  into  harmony  with 
what  we  have  learned  from  geology.  Its  ethnological 
statements  are  imperfect,  if  not  sometimes  inaccurate. 
The  stories  of  the  flood  and  of  the  Tower  of  Babel 
are  incredible  in  their  present  form.  Some  historical 
elements  may  underlie  many  of  the  traditions  in  the 
first  eleven  chapters  of  that  book,  but  this  we  cannot 
hope  to  recover." 

In  his  essay  on  "  Hebrew  Authority  "  in  Authority 
and  Arcb&ology,  Dr.  Driver,  Regius  Professor  of  He- 
brew in  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  sitting,  there- 
fore, in  the  chair  of  Pusey,  says  that  — 

the  general  result  of  the  archaeological  and  anthro- 
pological researches  of  the  past  half-century  has  been 
to  take  the  Hebrews  out  of  the  isolated  position 
which,  as  a  nation,  they  seemed  previously  to  hold, 
and  to  demonstrate  their  affinities  with,  and  often  their 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  187 

dependence  upon,  the  civilisations  by  which  they 
were  surrounded.  .  .  .  The  civilisation  which, 
in  spite  of  the  long  residence  of  the  Israelites  in 
Egypt,  left  its  mark,  however,  most  distinctly  upon 
the  culture  and  literature  of  the  Hebrews  was  that  of 
Babylonia.  It  was  in  the  East  that  the  Hebrew  tra- 
ditions placed  both  the  cradle  of  humanity  and  the 
more  immediate  home  of  their  own  ancestors ;  and  it 
was  Babylonia  which,  as  we  now  know,  exerted  dur- 
ing many  centuries  an  influence,  once  unsuspected, 
over  Palestine  itself.  .  .  .  Thus  the  beliefs  (of 
the  Hebrews)  about  the  origin  and  early  history  of  the 
world,  their  social  usages,  their  code  of  civil  and 
criminal  law,  their  religious  institutions,  can  no  longer 
be  viewed,  as  was  once  possible,  as  differing  in  kind 
from  those  of  other  nations,  and  determined  in  every 
feature  by  a  direct  revelation  from  Heaven ;  all,  it  is 
now  known,  have  substantial  analogies  among  other 
peoples,  the  distinctive  character  which  they  exhibit 
among  the  Hebrews  consisting  in  the  spirit  with 
which  they  are  infused,  and  the  higher  principles  of 
which  they  are  made  the  exponent.  Their  literature, 
moreover,  it  is  now  apparent,  was  not  exempt  from 
the  conditions  to  which  the  literature  of  other  nations 
was  subject ;  it  embraces,  for  instance,  narratives  re- 
lating to  what  we  should  term  the  prehistoric  age, 
similar  in  character  and  scope  to  those  occurring  in 
the  literature  of  other  countries.  There  are  many 
representations  and  statements  in  the  Old  Testament 
which  only  appear  in  their  proper  perspective  when 
viewed  in  the  light  thrown  upon  them  by  archaeology. 
And  in  some  cases  it  is  not  possible  to  resist  the  con- 
clusion that  they  must  be  interpreted  in  a  different 
sense  from  that  in  which  past  generations  have  com- 
monly understood  them.1 

1  Pp.  7.  8. 


I 88  HUXLEY 

The  Creation-story,  with  which  the  book  of  Gene- 
sis opens,  can  no  longer  be  regarded  "  as  possessing 
any  value  as  a  scientific  exposition  of  the  past  history 
of  the  earth."  There  is  now  no  question  whatever 
that  it  was  derived  from  the  Babylonian  epic,  the  gro- 
tesque polytheism  of  which  is,  in  the  Hebrew  variant, 
superseded  by  "  a  severe  and  dignified  monotheism." 
The  Sabbath  is,  in  all  probability,  an  institution  ulti- 
mately of  Babylonian  origin,  not  then  as  a  rest-day 
for  man,  but  "  a  day  when  the  gods  rested  from  their 
anger."  Among  the  Hebrews  it  was  made  subserv- 
ient to  human  needs  and  religious  purposes ;  but  "  its 
sanctity  is  explained  unhistorically,  and  ante-dated." 

Instead  of  the  Sabbath,  closing  the  week,  being 
sacred,  because  God  rested  upon  it  after  His  six  days' 
work  of  Creation,  the  work  of  Creation  was  distrib- 
uted among  six  days,  followed  by  a  day  of  rest ; 
because  the  week,  ended  by  the  Sabbath,  already  ex- 
isted as  an  institution,  and  the  writer  wished  to  adjust 
artificially  the  work  of  Creation  to  it.  In  other 
words,  the  week  determined  the  "  days  "  of  Creation, 
not  the  "days"  of  Creation  the  week.1 

The  story  of  Paradise  and  the  Fall,  on  the  validity 
of  which  a  fundamental  part  of  Christian  dogma  rests, 
"  exhibits  also  points  of  contact  with  Babylonia, 
though  not  so  definite  or  complete  as  those  presented 
by  the  first  Creation-story."  "  Eden  itself,"  remarks 

» Authority  and  Archeology,  p.  18. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  1 89 

Professor  Sayce,  "  is  the  Babylonian  Eden  or  Chal- 
dean '  plain  ' ;  its  garden  with  the  Tree  of  Knowledge 
is  celebrated  in  an  old  Babylonian  poem  (and  depicted 
on  Assyrian  monuments),  and  two  of  the  rivers  that 
water  it  are  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates." l  The 
cherubim  are  "  clearly  no  native  Hebrew  conception," 
and  are  probably  derived  either  from  the  Hittite  griffin 
or  the  Babylonian  divine  winged  bulls.2 

In  the  story  of  the  Flood,  "  we  have  a  direct  and 
interesting  parallel  from  Babylonia,"  the  original  of 
which  was  discovered  in  1872.  Canon  Driver  sup- 
plies an  admirable  resume  of  the  epic,  whose  subject  is 
the  exploits  of  the  hero  Gilgamesh,  told  in  twelve 
cantos.  The  Deluge-story  forms  the  eleventh  of 
these  cantos. 

There  are  of  course  differences ;  the  Biblical  ac- 
count of  the  Deluge  was  not,  any  more  than  the 
Biblical  account  of  Creation,  transcribed  directly  from 
a  Babylonian  source  j  but  by  some  channel  or  other — 
we  can  but  speculate  by  what — the  Babylonian  story 
found  its  way  into  Israel ;  details  were  forgotten  or 
modified :  it  assumed,  of  course,  a  Hebrew  complex- 
ion, being  adapted  to  the  spirit  of  Hebrew  monothe- 
ism, and  made  a  vehicle  for  the  higher  teaching  of  the 
Hebrew  religion  ;  but  the  main  outline  remained  the 
same,  and  the  substantial  identity  of  the  two  narra- 
tives is  unquestionable.3 

1  The  Temple  Bible,  Introd.  p.  xiv. 
3  Encyclopedia  Biblica,  Art.  "  Cherubim." 

3  Authority  and  Archeology ,  p.  27  ;  and  see  Coll.  Essays,  iv.  pp. 
239-286. 


I 9O  HUXLEY 

As  for  the  historical  existence  of  the  "  Father  of 
the  Faithful "  and  other  ancestors  of  Israel,  Canon 
Driver  animadverts  as  follows  on  the  assumptions  of 
pseudo-concessionists  of  the  type  of  Professor  Sayce  : 

Mr.  Tomkins  and  Professor  Sayce  have  produced 
works  on  The  Age  of  Abraham  and  Patriarchal  Pales- 
tine, full  of  interesting  particulars,  collected  from  the 
monuments,  respecting  the  condition,  political,  social, 
and  religious,  of  Babylonia,  Palestine,  and  Egypt,  in 
the  centuries  before  the  age  of  Moses  ;  but  neither  of 
these  volumes  contains  the  smallest  evidence  that 
either  Abraham  or  the  other  patriarchs  ever  actually 
existed.  Patriarchal  Palestine,  in  fact,  opens  with  a 
fallacy.  Critics,  it  is  said,  have  taught  "  that  there 
were  no  Patriarchs  and  no  Patriarchal  age,  but,  the 
critics  notwithstanding,  the  Patriarchal  age  has  actually 
existed,"  and  "it  has  been  shown  by  modern  discov- 
ery to  be  a  fact."  Modern  discovery  has  shown  no 
such  thing.  It  has  shown,  indeed,  that  Palestine  had 
inhabitants  before  the  Mosaic  age,  that  Babylonians, 
Egyptians,  and  Canaanites,  for  instance,  visited  it,  or 
made  it  their  home  ;  but  that  the  Hebrew  patriarchs 
lived  in  it  there  is  no  tittle  of  monumental  evidence 
whatever.  They  may  have  done  so ;  but  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  fact  depends  at  present  entirely  upon  what 
is  said  in  the  Book  of  Genesis.  Not  one  of  the 
many  facts  adduced  by  Professor  Sayce  is  independent 
evidence  that  the  Patriarchs  visited  Palestine — or  even 
that  they  existed  at  all.1 

Canon     Driver    will     find    materials    for    stronger 
criticism  of  Professor  Sayce  in  the  Introduction  con- 
tributed by  the  latter  to  the  Temple  Bible,  wherein  not 
1  Authority  and  Archaeology,  p.  149. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  19 1 

only  Abraham,  but  Adam  and  Noah,  are  said  "to 
form  successive  links  in  the  chain  of  Divine  educa- 
tion, which  with  each  fresh  starting-point  becomes 
less  general  and  more  personal."1  In  the  third  of 
his  Yale  Lectures  on  Modern  Criticism  and  the 
Preaching  of  the  Old  Testament^  Professor  G.  A. 
Smith  is  in  agreement  with  Canon  Driver : — 

While  archaeology  has  richly  illustrated  the  main  out- 
lines of  the  Book  of  Genesis  from  Abraham  to 
Joseph,  it  has  not  one  whit  of  proof  to  offer  for  the 
personal  existence  or  characters  of  the  Patriarchs 
themselves.  This  is  the  whole  change  archaeology 
has  wrought ;  it  has  given  us  a  background  and  an 
atmosphere  for  the  stories  of  Genesis ;  it  is  unable  to 
recall  or  to  certify  their  heroes. 

The  legendary  character  of  the  patriarchal  age, 
which  may  be  compared  with  the  heroic  age  in 
Greece,  was  demonstrated  by  Kuenen,  Knappert,  and 
other  Continental  scholars  thirty  years  ago.  "  Actual 
ancestors  are  never  distinctly  traceable,"  says  Dill- 
mann,  a  sound  statement  pushed  to  extremes  by 
Goldziher,  who,  following  the  late  Professor  Max 
Muller's  philological  methods,  resolved  Abraham, 
Isaac,  and  Jacob  into  sun  and  sky  myths,  Jacob's 
twelve  sons  being  the  moon  and  eleven  stars. 
Steinthal,  with  more  warrant,  converted  Samson,  the 
"  shining  one,"  into  a  solar  hero  whose  labours  cor- 

>P.  15- 


IQ2  HUXLEY 

respond  to  those  of  Hercules.  But  such  speculations 
are  of  slight  importance,  since  the  major  fact  of  the 
unhistorical  foundation  of  the  early  Hebrew  narra- 
tives is  admitted.  Canon  Driver  represents  the  views 
accepted  by  every  modern  scholar  having  claim  to 
authority.  They  are  adopted  by  the  contributors  to 
the  Encyclopedia  Biblical  a  work  in  which  Huxley 
would  have  found  the  justification  of  all  for  which  he 
contended:  they  are  in  course  of  adoption  in  text- 
books, and  will,  at  no  long  interval,  be  quietly  ad- 
mitted into  "  Bible  helps "  and  such  like  manuals 
issued  by  the  orthodox  publishing  societies.  In  the 
preface  to  the  most  recent  History  of  the  Hebrews,  its 
author,  the  Rev.  R.  L.  Ottley,  says:  "It  is  well  to 
recognise  the  fact  that  the  patriarchal  period  is  de- 
scribed to  us  in  narratives  which  were  compiled  in 
their  present  form  about  a  thousand  years  later  than 
the  events  they  describe,  and  of  which,  therefore,  as 
Professor  G.  A.  Smith  truly  observes,  *  it  is  simply 
impossible  for  us  at  this  time  of  day  to  establish  the 
accuracy.' " 

When  the  source  of  the  cosmogonic  and  other 
legends  was  discovered,  it  was  assumed  that  their 
presence  in  the  Old  Testament  was  due  to  the  con- 

1  Edited  by  Canon  Cheyne,  Oriel  Professor  of  the  Interpretation 
of  Holy  Scripture  in  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  J.  Sutherland 
Black,  LL.  D. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  193 

tact  of  the  Jews  with  Babylonian  ideas  during  the 
Exile.  But  this  did  not  account  for  the  very  great 
modifications  which  the  legends  had  undergone  before 
their  adoption  into  the  final  redaction  of  the 
Pentateuch ;  modifications  involving  long  processes 
of  elimination  of  polytheistic  elements.  Happily, 
the  discovery  of  a  number  of  cuneiform  tablets  at 
Tel-el-Amarna  in  Egypt  in  1887  throws  light  upon 
the  difficulty.  They  show  that,  at  about  1400  B.C., 

Palestine  and  the  neighbouring  countries  formed  an 
Egyptian  province  under  the  rule  of  Egyptian 
governors,  stationed  in  the  principal  towns,  and 
(what  is  more  remarkable)  communicating  with  their 
superiors  in  the  Babylonian  language,  thus  affording 
conclusive  evidence  that  for  long  previously  Canaan 
had  been  under  Babylonian  influence. l 

It  is  therefore  in  the  highest  degree  probable  that 
the  Babylonian  legends  had  been  imported  into 
Canaan  before  the  fifteenth  century  B.C.,  and  that  on 
the  settlement  of  the  Israelites  in  that  country,  they 
incorporated  these  legends  into  their  stock  of  tradi- 
tions. Down  to  the  eighth  century  B.C.,  the  materials 
of  Israelitic  history  existed  only  in  fragmentary  and 
unsettled  form,  made  up  of  songs  celebrating  the 
deeds  and  prowess  of  heroes ;  of  scraps  of  law ;  and 
of  legendary  and  actual  history  gathered  from  different 
sources  and  spread  over  many  centuries.  To  these 
1  Authority  and  ArcJucology,  p.  72. 


194  HUXLEY 

inchoate  materials  priestly  and  prophetic  hands  gave 
shape,  the  one  laying  stress  on  the  ceremonial  law, 
the  other  laying  stress  on  the  moral  law,  but  both 
emphasising  the  supremacy  of  Jahveh,  who,  after 
slow  emergence  from  the  nature-stage  as  a  mountain- 
god,  manifest  in  fire  and  burning-bush,  had  become 
invested  with  an  awful  holiness.  Every  song  and 
saga  was  adapted  to  "  the  law,  the  prophets,  and  the 
writings,"  and  charged  with  the  conviction  of  the 
mission  of  Israel  as  the  chosen  nation ;  and  hence  its 
religion  must  be  studied  in  the  light  of  its  history, 
and  its  history  in  the  light  of  its  religion.  Despite 
these  admissions,  of  which  sufficing  examples  have 
been  given,  we  find  Canon  Driver  and  his  brother 
theologians  still  justifying  Huxley's  gravamen  in  de- 
voting themselves 

to  the  end  of  keeping  the  name  of  "  Inspiration  "  to 
suggest  the  divine  source,  and  consequent  infallibility, 
of  more  or  less  of  the  Biblical  literature,  while  care- 
fully emptying  the  term  of  any  definite  sense.  For 
"  plenary  inspiration  "  we  are  asked  to  substitute  a 
sort  of  "  inspiration  with  limited  liability,"  the  limit 
being  susceptible  of  indefinite  fluctuation  in  corres- 
pondence with  the  demands  of  scientific  criticism. 
When  this  advances  that  at  once  retreats. 

This  Parthian  policy  is  carried  out  with  some 
dexterity  ;  but,  like  other  such  manoeuvres  in  the  face 
of  a  strong  foe,  it  seems  likely  to  end  in  disaster.  It 
is  easy  to  say,  and  sounds  plausible,  that  the  Bible  was 
not  meant  to  teach  anything  but  ethics  and  religion, 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  195 

and  that  its  utterances  on  other  matters  are  mere 
obiter  dicta :  it  is  also  a  specious  suggestion  that  in- 
spiration, filtering  through  human  brains,  must 
undergo  a  kind  of  fallibility  contamination ;  and  that 
this  human  impurity  is  responsible  for  any  errors,  the 
existence  of  which  has  to  be  admitted,  however  un- 
willingly. 

But  how  does  the  apologist  know  what  the  Biblical 
writers  intended  to  teach,  and  what  they  did  not  in- 
tend to  teach  ?  And  even  if  their  authority  is  re- 
stricted to  matters  of  faith  and  morals,  who  is  pre- 
pared to  deny  that  the  story  of  the  fabrication  of  Eve, 
that  of  the  lapse  of  innocence  effected  by  a  talking 
snake,  that  of  the  Deluge  and  demonological  legends, 
have  exercised,  and  still  exercise,  a  profound  influence 
on  Christian  theology  and  Christian  ethics  ? l 

Here  Huxley  again  reaches  the  core  of  the  matter. 
There  was  a  consistency  in  the  old  theory  of  verbal 
inspiration  ;  there  is  none  in  the  theory  of  a  divine 
and  human  element  in  the  Scriptures,  since  there  is 
no  possible  test  by  which  the  one  can  be  distinguished 
from  the  other.  And  the  decision  as  to  what  is,  and 
as  to  what  is  not,  revelation,  would  hardly  have  been 
left  by  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  creed-makers  and  the 
critics.  When  Canon  Driver  speaks  of  the  "  spirit 
of  the  legend  of  the  Creation  being  changed  in  the 
light  of  revelation,"  and  of  the  Israelite  writer  as 
"gifted  by  the  Holy  Spirit";  when  Professor  Sayce 
says  that  "  the  language  of  Genesis  rises  to  the  height 

1  Coll.  Essays,  iv.  p.  viii. 


196  HUXLEY 

of  the  revelation  it  contains,"  and  when  Mr.  Ottley 
talks  of  the  "  inspiration  which  we  justly  attribute  to 
the  Old  Testament  writers,"  they  are  each  playing 
with  names  to  which  there  are  no  correspondent  reali- 
ties. As  Professor  Goldwin  Smith  puts  it : — 

If  it  was  from  the  Holy  Spirit  that  these  narratives 
emanated,  how  can  the  Holy  Spirit  have  failed  to  let 
mankind  know  that  in  reality  they  were  allegories  ? 
How  could  it  allow  them  to  be  received  as  literal 
truths,  to  mislead  the  world  for  ages,  to  bar  the  ad- 
vance of  science,  and,  when  science  at  last  prevailed, 
to  discredit  revelation  by  the  exposure  ?  Besides,  to 
maintain  the  symbolical  truths  of  Genesis  is  almost 
as  hard  as  to  maintain  its  literal  truth.1 


Obviously,  the  effort  to  retain  the  saving  clause  of 
a  revelation  in  a  miscellaneous  collection  of  writings 
of  uncertain  date  and  authorship,  and  of  disputed 
meaning,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  the  Atonement  is  bound  up  with  the  story  of  the 
Fall.  The  legend  of  Eden  is  the  keystone  of  the 
arch  which  supports  the  whole  Christian  scheme  of 
redemption,  and  the  evidence  of  palaeontology  has  dis- 
proved the  Pauline  teaching  that  "death  came  into 
the  world  by  sin." 

But,  in  the  meantime,  while  the  learned  among 
them  still  hesitate  to  follow  facts  to  their  only  possi- 

1  Guesses  at  the  Riddle  of  Existence,  p.  55. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  197 

ble  conclusion,  the  great  mass  of  the  unlearned  clergy 
will  have  warrant  for  the  indiscriminate  reading  of  the 
legends  of  a  talking  ass ;  an  arrested  sun ;  of  the 
stories  of  Simeon  and  Levi's  treachery  and  Jehu's 
butcheries;  of  the  high  ethical  teaching  of  the 
Prophets ;  and  of  the  beatitudes  on  the  meek,  the 
peacemakers,  and  the  pure  in  heart ;  as  equally  in- 
tegral parts  of  writings  inspired  u  by  the  Holy  Spirit." 
Every  Sunday  in  thousands  of  churches  their  congre- 
gations are  still  told  that  "  God  Himself  spake  all 
these  words,"  saying,  "  In  six  days  the  Lord  made 
heaven  and  earth,  the  sea  and  all  that  in  them  is,  and 
rested  the  seventh  day,  wherefore  the  Lord  blessed  the 
Sabbath  day,  and  hallowed  it."  l  Thus,  as  Emerson 
says,  "  a  vast  carcass  of  tradition  is  exhibited  every 
year  with  as  much  solemnity  as  a  new  revelation." 

Criticism  was  not  to  be  arrested  by  the  blank  page 
which  separates  Malachi  from  Matthew ;  but  oppro- 
brium greeted  the  critic.2 


1  The   clergy   "  are   either   propagating   what  they  may  easily 
know,  and  therefore  are  bound  to  know,  to  be  falsities ;  or,  if  they 
use  the  words  in  some  non-natural  sense,  they  fall  below  the  moral 
standard  of  the  much-abused  Jesuit." — Coll.  Essays,  ii.  p.  146. 

2  Bishop  (then  Canon)  Gore  admits  that  the  same  criticism  must 
be  applied  to  the  New  Testament  as  is  applied  to  the  Old,  but  he 
qualifies  this  with  the  cryptic  remark  that  "  because  the  historical 
and  literary  conditions  in  the  two  cases  are  in  general  very  differ- 
ent, the  result  also  will  be  in  general  very  different." — Pilot,  loth 
Aug.,  1901. 


198  HUXLEY 

Destroy  the  foundation  of  most  forms  of  dogmatic 
Christianity  contained  in  the  second  chapter  of  Gen- 
esis, if  you  will ;  the  new  ecclesiasticism  undertakes 
to  underpin  the  structure,  and  make  it,  at  any  rate  to 
the  eye,  as  firm  as  ever;  but  let  him  be  anathema  who 
applies  exactly  the  same  canons  of  criticism  to  the 
opening  chapters  of  "Matthew"  or  of  "Luke." 
School  children  may  be  told  that  the  world  was  by  no 
means  made  in  six  days,  and  that  implicit  belief  in 
the  story  of  Noah's  Ark  is  permissible  only,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  business,  to  their  toymakers ;  but  they  are  to 
hold  for  the  certaintest  of  truths,  to  be  doubted  only 
at  peril  of  their  salvation,  that  their  Galilean  fellow- 
child  Jesus,  nineteen  centuries  ago,  had  no  human 
father.1 

In  treating  the  Old  Testament  "like  any  other 
book,"  Huxley  chose  as  a  test  case  the  interview  of 
Saul  with  the  ghost  of  Samuel  through  the  medium 
of  a  witch.  In  treating  the  New  Testament  "  like 
any  other  book,"  he  chose  as  a  test  case  the  story  of 
Jesus  exorcising  demons  from  a  man  and  permitting 
them  to  enter  into  two  thousand  swine,  "  to  the  great 
loss  and  damage  of  the  innocent  Gadarene  owners." 
In  both  cases,  therefore,  the  question  of  the  existence 
of  spirits  is  raised.  His  reason  for  the  selection  was 
that  in  the  course  of  discussions  in  the  years  1889- 
1891  "it  had  been  maintained  by  the  defenders  of 
ecclesiastical  Christianity  that  the  demonology  of  the 
books  of  the  New  Testament  is  an  essential  and  in- 

»  Coll.  Essays,  v.  p.  xi. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  199 

tegral  part  of  the  revelation  of  the  nature  of  the 
spiritual  world  promulgated  by  Jesus  of  Nazareth." 
So  far  he  was  in  agreement  with  them. 

Belief  in  spirits,  good  and  bad,  guardian  angels  and 
maliceful  demons,  beings  filling  an  intermediate  place 
as  lower  than  gods  and  greater  than  men,  is  a  survival 
of  savage  ideas  as  to  the  presence  of  innumerable 
spirits  everywhere,  and  an  impulse  in  certain  direc- 
tions was  given  to  this  belief  among  the  Jews  during 
the  Exile.  The  ancient  Babylonian  idea  that  disease 
is  due  to  demons  (a  belief  common  to  barbaric  peo- 
ples, among  whom  disease  and  death  are  not  regarded 
as  natural  events),  whose  expulsion  was  the  business 
of  the  exorcist,  struck  root  in  Judaism,  and  hence  we 
find  that  the  references  to  evil  spirits  are  more  fre- 
quent in  the  New  Testament  than  in  the  Old.  "  Be- 
lief in  possession  is  distinctive  of  late  Jewish  times,"  l 
as  is  that  in  angels,  who  become  the  appointed  "  mes- 
sengers "  between  Jahveh  and  men ;  on  whose  duties 
as  servants  before  the  heavenly  throne  the  prophets, 
notably  Ezekiel  and  Zechariah,  enlarge ;  and  whose 
presence  as  attendants  on  the  "  Son  of  Man  "  at  the 
Judgment-Day,  is  dwelt  upon  by  Jesus. 

It  is  plain  as  language  can  make  it,  that  the  writers 
of  the  Gospels  believed  in  the  existence  of  Satan  and 
the  subordinate  ministers  of  evil  as  strongly  as  they 

1  Encyclopedia  Biblica  :  Art.  "  Demons." 


200  HUXLEY 

believed  in  that  of  God  and  the  angels ;  and  that  they 
had  an  unhesitating  faith  in  possession  and  in  exor- 
cism. No  reader  of  the  first  three  Gospels  can  hesi- 
tate to  admit  that,  in  the  opinion  of  those  persons 
among  whom  the  traditions  out  of  which  they  are 
compiled  arose,  Jesus  held,  and  constantly  acted  upon, 
the  same  theory  of  the  spiritual  world.  Nowhere  do 
we  find  the  slightest  hint  that  he  doubted  the  theory, 
or  questioned  the  efficacy  of  the  curative  operations 
based  upon  it.1 


The  writer  of  the  article  "  Demons  "  in  the  Ency- 
clopedia Biblica  says  :  "  there  is  no  sign  on  the  part 
of  Jesus,  any  more  than  on  the  part  of  the  evangelists, 
of  mere  accommodation  to  the  current  belief.  It  is 
true  that  l  Satan '  is  used  metaphorically  in  the  rebuke 
of  Peter  (Matt.  xvi.  23)  and  that  l  unclean  spirit '  is 
figurative  in  Matt.  xii.  43.  Acceptance  of  the  cur- 
rent belief  is  clearly  at  the  basis  of  the  argument  of 
Jesus  with  the  Pharisees  (Luke  xi.  16-26);  .  .  . 
and  that  He  believed  in  the  power  of  others  besides 
Himself  and  His  disciples  to  expel  demons,  in  some 
sense  at  any  rate,  seems  clear  in  the  presence  of  such 
passages  as  Matt.  xii.  27  and  Luke  xi.  19,  where  He 
attributes  the  power  to  the  disciples  of  the  Pharisees. 
He  recognises  also  the  fact  that  similar  success  was 
attained  by  some  who  used  His  name  without  actually 
following  Him  (Mark  ix.  38)  or  without  being  more 

1  Coll.  Eaays,  v.  p.  193. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  2OI 

than  professed  disciples."1  And  the  author  of  Ex- 
ploratio  Evangelica  says  that  "  it  is  probable  Jesus  ac- 
cepted the  hypothesis  of  demoniac  possession  as  easily 
as  He  accepted  the  hypothesis  that  the  sun  moves 
round  the  earth."2  In  the  declaration  that  He  cast 
out  devils  (Luke  xiii.  32),  and  His  bestowal  of  the  like 
power  upon  His  disciples  (Luke  ix.  i) ;  in  the  story 
of  the  temptation ;  in  the  warning  that  the  wicked 
would  depart  into  everlasting  fire,  prepared  for  the 
devil  and  his  angels  ("  the  doctrine  of  eternal  damna- 
tion is  a  Judaistic  survival  of  grossly  immoral  char- 
acter " 3)  no  ingenuity  can  distort  the  fact  that  Jesus 
shared  the  common  demonological  belief  of  His  time 
and  people. 

And  the  issue  which  Huxley  raised  is  as  clear  as  it 
is  serious : — 

When  such  a  story  as  that  about  the  Gadarene 
swine  is  placed  before  us,  the  importance  of  the  de- 
cision, whether  it  is  to  be  accepted  or  rejected,  cannot 
be  overestimated.  If  the  demonological  part  of  it  is 
to  be  accepted,  the  authority  of  Jesus  is  unmistakably 
pledged  to  the  demonological  system  current  in  Judea 
in  the  first  century.  The  belief  in  devils,  who  pos- 
sess men  and  can  be  transferred  from  men  to  pigs, 

1  See  quotation  to  the  same  effect,  from  Dr.  Alexander's  Bibl. 
Cyclopedia,  given  in  Coll.  Essays,  v.  p.  217. 

2  P.  225. 

*A  Critical  History  of  a  Future  Life.      By   R.    H.   Charles, 
D.D.,  p.  311. 


2O2  HUXLEY 

becomes  as  much  a  part  of  Christian  dogma  as  any 
article  of  the  creeds.  If  it  is  to  be  rejected,  there  are 
two  alternative  conclusions.  Supposing  the  Gospels 
to  be  historically  accurate,  it  follows  that  Jesus  shared 
in  the  errors  respecting  the  nature  of  the  spiritual 
world  prevalent  in  the  age  in  which  He  lived,  and 
among  the  people  of  His  nation.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  Gospel  traditions  give  us  only  a  popular 
version  of  the  sayings  and  doings  of  Jesus,  falsely  col- 
oured, and  distorted  by  the  superstitious  imaginings  of 
the  minds  through  which  it  had  passed,. what  guaran- 
tee have  we  that  a  similar  unconscious  falsification,  in 
accordance  with  preconceived  ideas,  may  not  have 
taken  place  in  respect  of  other  reported  sayings  and 
doings  ?  What  is  to  prevent  a  conscientious  inquirer 
from  finding  himself  at  last  in  a  purely  agnostic  posi- 
tion with  respect  to  the  teachings  of  Jesus,  and  con- 
sequently with  respect  to  the  fundamentals  of  Chris- 
tianity ? ' 

The  old  argument  that  miracles  are  impossible,  be- 
cause contrary  to  the  order  of  nature,  is  no  longer 
advanced,  since  its  force  is  limited  to  what  we  infer 
from  our  experience  of  that  order.  The  fact  that  a 
certain  thing  has  not  happened  within  our  knowledge 
is  no  proof  that  it  never  happened  in  the  past,  or  that 
it  can  never  happen  in  the  future.  Nothing,  as 
Huxley  points  out,  is  to  be  declared  "  impossible," 
except  contradictions  in  terms,  as  a  round  square,  a 
present  past,  or  the  intersection  of  two  parallel  lines. 
None  of  us  have  seen  a  centaur  or  a  griffin,  but  the 

1  Coll.  Essays,  v.  pp.  193,  194 ;   and  see  p.  218. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  203 

existence  of  such  monsters  is  conceivable ;  so  with  the 
miracles  reported  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  or  in 
the  Acta  Sanctorum ;  they  are  conceivable  by  the  im- 
agination, however  repellent  to  the  reason.  And  the 
argument  which  alone  has  force  against  miracles  is, 
that  as  their  alleged  occurrence  is  an  event  lying  outside 
our  experience  of  an  unbroken  uniformity  of  nature, 
belief  in  them  must  be  determined  by  the  validity  of  the 
evidence.  And  the  more  improbable  the  character  of 
the  alleged  miracle,  the  more  cogent  must  be  the  evi- 
dence in  its  support.  Dealing  with  the  miracles 
narrated  in  the  Gospels,  it  would  seem  only  reason- 
able, before  accepting  the  truth  of  the  story,  to  expect 
that  in  the  case  of  documents  for  which  inspiration 
is  claimed  there  should  be  no  discrepancies  in  the 
record ;  that  the  Holy  Spirit  would  have  protected  the 
revelation  from  error  and  obscurity.  Under  this  test 
the  evidence  breaks  down.  An  examination  of  a 
work  published  by  the  Religious  Tract  Society,  under 
the  unconsciously  ironical  title,  Harmony  of  the 
Gospels^  brings  out  the  discord  between  them.  Upon 
a  matter  so  momentous  in  its  assumed  bearings  on 
human  destiny  as  the  Virgin  Birth  (to  which  the  ear- 
liest of  the  Synoptics  makes  no  reference),  there  is  no 
agreement ;  while  the  accounts  of  the  character  of 
the  last  supper,  of  the  last  hours  of  Jesus  on  the 
cross,  and  of  the  events  following  His  alleged  resur- 


204  HUXLEY 

rection,  vary  irreconcilably.  A  recent  defender  of 
the  faith  remarks  that  u  the  tale  of  the  physical  resur- 
rection of  Jesus  belongs  evidently  to  the  same  circle 
of  thought  as  that  of  the  miraculous  birth.  It  shows  a 
love  of  the  marvellous ;  is  deeply  tinged  with  material- 
ism ;  and  rests  on  a  historical  substruction  which  falls 
to  pieces  on  a  careful  examination." '  So  with  the 
Gadarene  story ;  so  with  the  story  of  the  feeding  of 
several  thousand  with  a  few  loaves,  with  the  result  that 
"  the  quantity  of  the  fragments  of  the  meal  left  over 
amounted  to  much  more  than  the  original  store " : 
the  reports  differ.  The  explanation,  hitherto  arrested 
and  darkened  by  theories  of  inspiration,  is  obvious. 
With  the  abandonment  of  those  theories,  every  diffi- 
culty vanishes.  The  Gospels  are  the  handiwork  of 
men  who  lived  in  an  age  when  any  conception  of  the 
uniformity  of  nature  was  foreign  to  the  mind  ;  men 
in  whom  the  critical  faculty  of  weighing  of  evidence 
was  wholly  lacking,  and  who  set  down,  each  in  his 
own  fashion,  stories  of  events  said  to  have  happened 
many  years  before — stories  which  had  therefore  filtered 
through  many  channels;  fallible  hearers  repeating 
them  to  fallible  writers,  whose  honesty  and  sincerity 
are  not  doubted,  but  whose  competency  is  questioned. 
As  Dr.  Sutherland  Black  says  in  his  admirably  com- 
pendious article  on  the  "  Gospels "  in  Cbambers's 
1  Exploratio  Evangelica,  p.  255. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  2O5 

Encyclopedia^  "  no  one  of  them  is  a  primary  document 
in  the  sense  of  having  been  written  in  its  present 
form  from  direct  personal  knowledge ;  and  it  is  ob- 
vious that  each  succeeding  evangelist,  in  availing  him- 
self of  the  labours  of  his  predecessors,  did  so  with  a 
feeling  of  perfect  freedom,  not  claiming  for  himself, 
nor  according  to  his  fellows,  nor  expecting  for  either 
from  the  church,  any  title  to  authority  as  infallible." 
That  authority  was  claimed  for  them  by  the  framers 
of  the  Canon,  fallible  men  determining  what  is  in- 
fallible ;  men  whose  critical  capacity  and  materials  for 
decision  are  hardly  warrant  for  the  burden  which  they 
have  for  centuries,  unchallenged,  laid  upon  more  com- 
petent judges.  "  The  times  of  the  first  Church  were 
times  of  excitement ;  when  the  appeal  was  not  to  the 
questioning,  thinking  understanding,  but  to  unheed- 
ing, all-venturing  emotion,  to  that  lower  class  '  from 
whom  faiths  ascend ' ;  not  to  the  cultivated  class  by 
whom  they  are  criticised."  *  Huxley's  tribute  to  the 
service  rendered  to  human  kind  by  the  Bible  (see  ante, 
p.  38)  adds  emphasis  to  his  protest  against  the  evil  of 
which  the  doctrine  of  its  infallibility  has  been  fruitful. 

The  pretension  to  infallibility,  by  whomsoever 
made,  has  done  endless  mischief;  with  impartial  ma- 
lignity it  has  proved  a  curse  alike  to  those  who  have 
made  it  and  those  who  have  accepted  it :  and  its  most 

1  Literary  Studies.     By  Walter  Bagehot,  ii.  p.  46. 


2O6  HUXLEY 

baneful  shape  is  book  infallibility.  For  sacerdotal 
corporations  and  schools  of  philosophy  are  able,  under 
due  compulsion  of  opinion,  to  retreat  from  positions 
that  have  become  untenable ;  while  the  dead  hand  of 
a  book  sets  and  stiffens,  amidst  texts  and  formulae, 
until  it  becomes  a  mere  petrifaction,  fit  only  for  the 
function  of  stumbling-block  which  it  so  admirably 
performs.  Wherever  bibliolatry  has  prevailed,  bigotry 
and  cruelty  have  accompanied  it.  It  lies  at  the  root 
of  the  deep-seated,  sometimes  disguised,  but  newer 
absent,  antagonism  of  all  the  varieties  of  ecclesiasti- 
cism  to  the  freedom  of  thought  and  to  the  spirit  of 
scientific  investigation.  For  those  who  look  upon 
ignorance  as  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  evil,  and  hold 
veracity,  not  merely  in  act,  but  in  thought,  to  be  the 
one  condition  of  true  progress,  whether  moral  or  in- 
tellectual, it  is  clear  that  the  Biblical  idol  must  go  the 
way  of  all  other  idols.  Of  infallibility  in  all  shapes, 
lay  or  clerical,  it  is  needful  to  iterate  with  more  than 
Catonic  pertinacity,  Delenda  est.1 

In  the  controversy  over  the  Gadarene  story,  the 
authenticity  of  which  was  defended  by  Dr.  Wace  and 
Mr.  Gladstone,  Huxley  raised  the  question  whether 
the  ever-accumulating  experience  of  mankind  concern- 
ing the  non-intrusion  of  the  supernatural  in  the  se- 
quence of  phenomena  was  to  be  regarded  as  of  no 
account  as  against  the  story  of  demon-possessed  pigs. 
For  history  shows  that  all  advance  in  knowledge  has 
caused  recession  of  belief  in  miracle,  and  that  the 
farther  back  inquiry  is  pushed  the  more  active  is  that 
belief.  And  the  argument  that  miracles  ceased  at  a 
»  Co&  Essays,  iv.  p.  IO. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  2OJ 

certain  stage,  the  date  of  which  is  a  hotly  debated 
question  among  ecclesiastics,  has  no  force  if  they  were 
wrought  as  signs  and  wonders  to  remove  unbelief, 
since  if  that  was  their  purpose  the  need  of  them  is 
greater  than  ever.  As  was  his  wont,  Huxley  went 
straight  to  the  point. 

I  am  not  more  certain  about  anything  than  I  am 
that  the  evidence  tendered  in  favour  of  the  demon- 
ology  of  which  the  Gadarene  story  is  a  typical  ex- 
ample is  utterly  valueless.1 

Everything  that  I  know  of  physiological  and  patho- 
logical science  leads  me  to  entertain  a  very  strong 
conviction  that  the  phenomena  ascribed  to  possession 
are  as  purely  natural  as  those  which  constitute  small- 
pox ;  everything  that  I  know  of  anthropology  leads 
me  to  think  that  the  belief  in  demons  and  demoniacal 
possession  is  a  mere  survival  of  a  once  universal 
superstition,  and  that  its  persistence  at  the  present 
time  is  pretty  much  in  the  inverse  ratio  of  the  general 
instruction,  intelligence,  and  sound  judgment  of  the 
population  among  whom  it  prevails.  Everything  that 
I  know  of  law  and  justice  convinces  me  that  the 
wanton  destruction  of  other  people's  property  is  a 
misdemeanour  of  evil  example.  Again,  the  study  of 
history,  and  especially  of  the  fifteenth,  sixteenth,  and 
seventeenth  centuries,  leaves  no  shadow  of  doubt  on  my 
mind  that  the  belief  in  the  reality  of  possession  and 
of  witchcraft,  justly  based,  alike  by  Catholics  and 
Protestants,  upon  this  and  innumerable  other  passages 
in  both  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  gave  rise, 
through  the  special  influence  of  Christian  ecclesiastics, 
to  the  most  horrible  persecutions  and  judicial  murders 
pf  thousands  upon  thousands  of  innocent  men,  women, 

1  Coll.  Essays,  v.  p.  206. 


208  HUXLEY 

and  children.  And  when  I  reflect  that  the  record  of 
a  plain  and  simple  declaration  upon  such  an  occasion 
as  this,  that  the  belief  in  witchcraft  and  possession  is 
wicked  nonsense,  would  have  rendered  the  long  agony 
of  medieval  humanity  impossible,  I  am  prompted  to 
reject,  as  dishonouring,  the  supposition  that  such 
declaration  was  withheld  out  of  condescension  to 
popular  error.1 


The  Gospels,  the  Acts,  the  Epistles,  and  the  Apoc- 
alypse assert  the  existence  of  the  devil,  of  his 
demons  and  of  hell,  as  plainly  as  they  do  that  of  God 
and  His  angels  and  heaven.  It  is  plain  that  the  Mes- 
sianic and  the  Satanic  conceptions  of  the  writers  of 
these  books  are  the  obverse  and  the  reverse  of  the 
same  intellectual  coinage.  If  we  turn  from  Scripture 
to  the  traditions  of  the  Fathers  and  the  confessions 
of  the  Churches,  it  will  appear  that,  in  this  one  par- 
ticular, at  any  rate,  time  has  brought  about  no  im- 
portant deviation  from  primitive  belief.  From  Justin 
onwards  it  may  often  be  a  fair  question  whether  God, 
or  the  devil,  occupies  a  larger  share  of  the  attention 
of  the  Fathers.  It  is  the  devil  who  instigates  the 
Roman  authorities  to  persecute;  the  gods  and  god- 
desses of  paganism  are  devils,  and  idolatry  itself  is  an 
invention  of  Satan ;  if  a  saint  falls  away  from  grace, 
it  is  by  the  seduction  of  the  demon ;  if  heresy  arises, 
the  devil  has  suggested  it ;  and  some  of  the  Fathers 
go  so  far  as  to  challenge  the  pagans  to  a  sort  of  exor- 
cising match,  by  way  of  testing  the  truth  of  Chris- 
tianity. Medieval  Christianity  is  at  one  with  patristic, 
on  this  head.  The  masses,  the  clergy,  the  theo- 
logians, and  the  philosophers  alike,  live  and  move  and 
have  their  being  in  a  world  full  of  demons,  in  which 
sorcery  and  possession  are  every-day  occurrences. 

>/<*..  pp.  215,  216. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  2OQ 

Nor  did  the  Reformation  make  any  difference. 
Whatever  else  Luther  assailed,  he  left  the  traditional 
demonology  untouched ;  nor  could  any  one  have 
entertained  a  more  hearty  and  uncompromising  belief 
in  the  devil,  than  he  and,  at  a  later  period,  the  Cal- 
vinistic  fanatics  of  New  England  did.  Finally,  in 
these  last  years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  demon- 
ological  hypotheses  of  the  first  century  are,  explicitly 
or  implicitly,  held  and  occasionally  acted  upon  by  the 
immense  majority  of  Christians  of  all  confessions.1 

But  although  this  be  so  with  the  loose  adherents  of 
current  creeds  ;  although  the  man  who  smiles  when 
he  hears  the  story  of  the  demons  passing  into  the 
bodies  of  terrified  swine  has  a  trembling  of  soul  when 
he  hears  of  the  temptation  of  Jesus  by  the  devil,  so 
that,  feeling  scepticism  to  be  somewhat  perilous,  he 
carries  his  belief  in  demonology  to  a  "  suspense  ac- 
count," Huxley  added  that  he  ventured  "to  doubt 
whether,  at  this  present  moment,  any  Protestant 
theologian  who  has  a  reputation  to  lose  will  say  that 
he  believes  the  Gardarene  story." 

Dr.  Wace  at  once  retorted  that,  so  far  as  he  was 
concerned,  the  doubt  had  no  foundation.  "  I  repeat," 
he  said,  "  that  I  believe  it,  and  that  Mr.  Huxley  has 
removed  the  only  objection  to  my  believing  it," 
namely,  that  to  reject  it  would  be  denial  of  the 
veracity  of  Jesus.  While  humorously  disclaiming 
any  responsibility  for  the  confirmation  of  Dr.  Wace's 
»  Coll.  Essays,  v.  pp.  322,  323. 


210  HUXLEY 

belief  that  "  the  spiritual  world  comprises  devils,  who, 
under  certain  circumstances,  may  enter  men  and  be 
transferred  from  them  to  four-footed  beasts," ' 
Huxley  could  but  admire  the  courage,  whatever  might 
be  the  opinion  he  held  of  the  intelligence,  of  his 
opponent.  "  Dr.  Wace,"  he  said,  "  has  raised  for 
himself  a  monument  are  perennius."  Huxley  was 
charitably  silent  as  to  the  appropriate  inscription  to  be 
put  on  it. 

In  the  attack  upon  agnosticism  which  led  to  the 
controversy,  Dr.  Wace  accused  the  agnostics  of  thus 
dubbing  themselves  to  avoid  the  "  unpleasant  signifi- 
cance "  attaching  to  the  term  "  infidel,"  which,  like 
"  freethinker,"  strange  as  it  may  seem  in  this 
twentieth  century,  still  appears  to  convey  reproach. 
And  he  added,  in  minatory  tartness,  that  "  it  is,  and 
ought  to  be,  an  unpleasant  thing  for  a  man  to  have  to 
say  plainly  that  he  does  not  believe  in  Jesus  Christ."  * 
Whatever  vague  threat  the  word  "unpleasant" 
might  convey,  whether  hints  of  the  secular  arm,  or 
social  ostracism,  or  eternal  punishment,  any  possible 
penalty  was  not  likely  to  weigh  with  Huxley.  He 
retorted  that  the  proposition 

that  "  it  ought  to  be  "  unpleasant  for  any  man  to  say 

anything  which  he  sincerely  and,  after  due  deliberation, 

believes,  is,  to    my   mind,  of  the    most   profoundly 

1  Coll.  Essays,  v.  p.  415.  *  Coll.  Essays,  v.  p.  21O. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  211 

immoral  character.  I  verily  believe  that  the  great 
good  which  has  been  effected  in  the  world  by  Chris- 
tianity has  been  largely  counteracted  by  the  pestilent 
doctrine  on  which  all  the  Churches  have  insisted,  that 
honest  disbelief  in  their  more  or  less  astonishing 
creeds  is  a  moral  offence,  indeed,  a  sin  of  the  deepest 
dye,  deserving  and  involving  the  same  future  retribu- 
tion as  murder  and  robbery.  If  we  could  only  see, 
in  one  view,  the  torrents  of  hypocrisy  and  cruelty, 
the  lies,  the  slaughter,  the  violations  of  every  obliga- 
tion of  humanity,  which  have  flowed  from  this  source 
along  the  course  of  the  history  of  Christian  nations, 
our  worst  imaginations  of  hell  would  pale  beside  the 
vision.1 

As  to  the  use  of  the  term  "  agnostic,"  Huxley 
says  — 

When  I  reached  intellectual  maturity  and  began  to 
ask  myself  whether  I  was  an  atheist,  a  theist,  or  a 
pantheist ;  a  materialist  or  an  idealist ;  a  Christian  or 
a  freethinker ;  I  found  that  the  more  I  learned  and 
reflected,  the  less  ready  was  the  answer ;  until,  at 
last,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  I  had  neither  art 
nor  part  with  any  of  these  denominations,  except  the 
last.  The  one  thing  in  which  most  of  these  good 
people  were  agreed  was  the  one  thing  in  which  I 
differed  from  them.  They  were  quite  sure  they  had 
attained  a  certain  "  gnosis," — had,  more  or  less  suc- 
cessfully, solved  the  problem  of  existence ;  while  I 
was  quite  sure  I  had  not,  and  had  a  pretty  strong  con- 
viction that  the  problem  was  insoluble.2 

At  any  rate,  whatever  explanation  of  the  universe 
there  may  be,  Huxley  was  satisfied  that  theology  had 
1  Ib.%  p.  241.  »  Coll.  Essays,  v.  p.  238. 


212  HUXLEY 

not  supplied  it.  Joining  the  Metaphysical  Society, 
he  found  in  that  "  remarkable  confraternity  of 
antagonists"  every  variety  of  philosophical  and 
theological  opinion  represented,  most  of  the  members 
being  "-M/J  of  one  sort  or  another."  So,  nameless 
himself,  he  "  conceived  the  appropriate  title  of 
4  agnostic.' "  "  It  came,"  he  says,  "  into  my  head  as 
suggestively  antithetic  to  the  'gnostic'  of  Church 
history,  who  professed  to  know  so  much  about  the 
very  things  of  which  I  was  ignorant."  But,  as  the 
word  implies,  it  connotes  neither  confession  of  faith 
nor  doctrinal  formula  ;  neither  affirmation  nor  denial. 
"  And  dares  stamp  nothing  false  where  he  finds  noth- 
ing sure."  * 

Agnosticism,  in  fact,  is  not  a  creed,  but  a  method, 
the  essence  of  which  lies  in  the  rigorous  application 
of  a  single  principle.  That  principle  is  of  great 
antiquity ;  it  is  as  old  as  Socrates ;  as  old  as  the  writer 
who  said,  "  Try  all  things,  hold  fast  by  that  which  is 
good ; "  it  is  the  foundation  of  the  Reformation, 
which  simply  illustrated  the  axiom  that  every  man 
should  be  able  to  give  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in 
him  ;  it  is  the  great  principle  of  Descartes  ;  it  is  the 
fundamental  axiom  of  modern  science.  Positively, 
the  principle  may  be  expressed  :  In  matters  of  the 
intellect,  follow  your  reason  as  far  as  it  will  take  you, 
without  regard  to  any  other  consideration.  And 
negatively :  In  matters  of  the  intellect  do  not  pre- 
tend that  conclusions  are  certain  which  are  not  dem- 

1  Matthew  Arnold,  EmptdocUs. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  213 

onstrated  or  demonstrable.  That  I  take  to  be  the 
agnostic  faith,  which  if  a  man  keep  whole  and  un- 
defiled,  he  shall  not  be  ashamed  to  look  the  universe 
in  the  face,  whatever  the  future  may  have  in  store  for 
him. 1- 


It  was  no  hard  matter  to  show  that  the  vagueness 
was  on  the  other  side.  The  phrase  "  belief  in  Jesus 
Christ "  has  as  many  meanings  as  there  are  sects. 
The  Episcopalian  has  one  definition  of  it;  the  Uni- 
tarian has  another.  And  Huxley  showed  what  diffi- 
culty attends  any  effort  to  construct  a  consistent 
portrait  of  Jesus  from  the  Synoptics  and  the  gospel 
of  John,  and  then  to  reconcile  this  with  the  Jesus  of 
the  creeds.  The  New  Testament  witnesses  to  dis- 
ruptions on  the  question  of  "belief"  in  him  soon 
after  his  death.  His  immediate  followers  were 
"  Nazarenes,"  who  acknowledged  his  brother  James 
as  their  head,  and  who  conformed  to  the  Jewish  law, 
differing  from  their  copatriots  only  in  believing  that 
the  Messiah  had  already  come  in  the  person  of  Jesus. 
The  division  of  the  disciples  of  the  Master  into 
Nazarenes  and  Christians,  which  latter  appellation  is 
said  to  have  been  first  used  at  Antioch,  arose  through 
the  contention  of  Paul  and  Barnabas  that  the  com- 
mands regarding  circumcision  and  abstinence  from 
certain  foods  were  abrogated.  So  the  "primitive 

1  Coll.  Essays,  v.  p.  245,  and  see  ante,  p.  40. 


214  HUXLEY 

Church,"  around  whose  story  ecclesiastical  historians 
have  cast  a  halo,  was  "  no  dogmatic  dovecot  pervaded 
by  the  most  loving  unity  and  doctrinal  harmony." 
Nazarenism  became  "  a  damnable  heresy,  while  the 
younger  doctrine  throve  and  pushed  out  its  shoots 
into  that  endless  variety  of  sects,  of  which  the  three 
strongest  survivors  are  the  Roman  and  Greek 
Churches  and  modern  Protestantism." 1 

A  masterly  summary  of  the  rise  and  development 
of  Christianity,  of  the  foreign  influences  which  shaped 
it,  and  of  the  mythologies,  the  pagan  rites  and  cere- 
monies, themselves  of  barbaric  origin,  which  it  incor- 
porated, is  given  in  the  essay  on  the  "  Evolution  of 
Theology."2  This  should  be  read  in  conjunction 
with  the  prologue  to  the  fifth  volume  of  Collected 
Essays  (of  which  Huxley  wrote  to  a  friend  :  "  It  cost 
me  more  time  and  pains  than  any  equal  number  of 
pages  I  have  ever  written  "3),  in  which  the  history  of 
the  struggle  between  Naturalism  and  Supernaturalism 
is  outlined,  and  the  evidence  on  which  the  doctrine 
of  Evolution  rests,  set  forth.  Both  papers  will  help 
to  clear  away  the  haze  which  hangs  round  questions 
in  the  discussion  of  which  the  spirit  of  the  advocate 
rather  than  of  the  truth-seeker  is  present.  Strauss 
said  that  "  the  true  criticism  of  dogma  is  its  history," 
because  in  this  are  to  be  found  the  indictment  of  hu- 

»  Coll.  Essays,  v.  p.  231.          « Ib.,  pp.  367-371.          *  II.  298. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  215 

manity  against  creeds  between  which  and  the  facts  of 
life  and  nature  there  is  no  correspondence,  since  they 
remain  puzzles  to  the  head  and  strangers  to  the  heart. 
As  Emerson  says,  "  The  prayers  and  dogmas  of  our 
Church  are  like  the  zodiac  of  Denderah  and  the  as- 
tronomical monuments  of  the  Hindoos,  wholly  in- 
sulated from  anything  now  extant  in  the  life  and  the 
business  of  the  people."  1 

In  place  of  the  "  tangled  Trinities,"  the  logoma- 
chies which  only  bewilder  and  perplex,  Huxley  asked 
the  Churches  to  revive  "  a  conception  of  religion 
which,"  he  says,  "  appears  to  me  as  wonderful  an  in- 
spiration of  genius  as  the  art  of  Pheidias  or  the 
science  of  Aristotle.  l  And  what  doth  the  Lord  re- 
quire of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy, 
and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  ? '  If  any  so- 
called  religion  takes  away  from  this  great  saying  of 
Micah,  I  think  it  wantonly  mutilates,  while,  if  it 
adds  thereto,  I  think  it  obscures  the  perfect  ideal  of 
religion."  2 

All  that  is  best  in  the  ethics  of  the  modern  world, 
in  so  far  as  it  has  not  grown  out  of  Greek  thought,  or 
Barbarian  manhood,  is  the  direct  development  of  the 
ethics  of  old  Israel.  There  is  no  code  of  legislation, 
ancient  or  modern,  at  once  so  just  and  so  merciful,  so 
tender  to  the  weak  and  poor,  as  the  Jewish  law ;  and 
if  the  Gospels  are  to  be  trusted,  Jesus  of  Nazareth 

i  "  The  American  Scholar."  •  Coll.  Essays,  iv,  p.  161. 


2l6  HUXLEY 

Himself  declared  that  He  taught  nothing  but  that 
which  lay  implicitly,  or  explicitly,  in  the  religious  and 
ethical  system  of  His  people. 

And  the  scribe  said  unto  Him,  Of  a  truth,  Teacher, 
Thou  hast  well  said  that  he  is  one ;  and  there  is  none 
other  but  he,  and  to  love  him  with  all  the  heart,  and 
with  all  the  understanding,  and  with  all  the  strength, 
and  to  love  his  neighbor  as  himself,  is  much  more 
than  all  whole  burnt  offerings  and  sacrifices  (Mark 
xii-  32,  33)- 

Here  is  the  briefest  of  summaries  of  the  teaching 
of  the  prophets  of  Israel  of  the  eighth  century ;  does 
the  Teacher,  whose  doctrine  is  thus  set  forth  in  His 
presence,  repudiate  the  exposition  ?  Nay ;  we  are 
told,  on  the  contrary,  that  Jesus  saw  that  He  "  an- 
swered discreetly,"  and  replied,  "  Thou  art  not  far 
from  the  kingdom  of  God." 

So  that  I  think  that  even  if  the  creeds,  from  the 
so-called  "  Apostles'  "  to  the  so-called  "  Athanasian," 
were  swept  into  oblivion ;  and  even  if  the  human 
race  should  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that,  whether  a 
bishop  washes  a  cup  or  leaves  it  unwashed,  is  not  a 
matter  of  the  least  consequence,  it  will  get  on  very 
well.  The  causes  which  have  led  to  the  development 
of  morality  in  mankind,  which  have  guided  or  im- 
pelled us  all  the  way  from  the  savage  to  the  civilised 
state,  will  not  cease  to  operate  because  a  number  of 
ecclesiastical  hypotheses  turn  out  to  be  baseless. 
And,  even  if  the  absurd  notion  that  morality  is  more 
the  child  of  speculation  than  of  practical  necessity 
and  inherited  instinct  had  any  foundation ;  if  all  the 
world  is  going  to  thieve,  murder,  and  otherwise  mis- 
conduct itself  as  soon  as  it  discovers  that  certain  por- 
tions of  ancient  history  are  mythical ;  what  is  the 
relevance  of  such  arguments  to  any  one  who  holds  by 
the  Agnostic  principle  ? l 

1  Coll.  Essays,  v.  p.  316. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST       .  217 

Turning  briefly  to  Mr.  Gladstone's  intervention  in 
the  controversy,  his  chief  concern  was  about  Hux- 
ley's charge  against  Jesus  as  wantonly  destroying  other 
people's  property.  He  was  sceptical  as  to  the  pigs 
numbering  two  thousand,  and  in  a  foot-note  to  the 
concluding  chapter  of  the  Impregnable  Rock  of  Holy 
Scripture  suggests  that  "so  large  a  number  may  be 
due  to  the  error  of  a  copyist,  or  very  possibly  a 
marginal  gloss,  which  afterwards  crept  into  the  text." 
But  as  the  existence  of  demons  was  accepted  by  Mr. 
Gladstone  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  statistics  as  to 
the  pigs  are  of  minor  importance,  except  as  they  may 
affect  the  question  of  an  inspired  text.  What  he 
sought  to  prove  was  that  the  keepers  of  the  swine 
were  Jews,  and  that  therefore  they  were  justly  pun- 
ished for  their  breach  of  the  Mosaic  law.  Josephus 
is  quoted  as  evidence.  But  Huxley  showed  con- 
clusively that  Mr.  Gladstone  had  misread  Josephus, 
and  he  established  beyond  question  that  Gadara  was  a 
Gentile,  and  not  a  Jewish  city.  All  in  vain.  Mr. 
Gladstone  stuck  to  his  statements,  and  as  edition  after 
edition  of  the  Impregnable  Rock  was  issued  without 
modification,  there  can  be  little  wonder  that  while  in 
publicly  criticising  these  methods  Huxley  called  them 
"  peculiar,"  in  private  correspondence  he  spoke  of  the 
man  who  practised  them  as  a  "  copious  shuffler,"  l 

1  II.   122.     In  a  letter  to  Colonel  Ingersoll,  written  in  March, 


2l8  HUXLEY 

and  bracketed  him  with  Owen  and  Bishop  Wilber- 
force  as  belonging  "  to  a  very  curious  type  of  human- 
ity, with  many  excellent  and  even  great  qualities,  and 
one  fatal  defect — utter  untrustworthiness."  '  It  is  in- 
teresting to  note  here  that  in  a  conversation  with  Mr. 
Lionel  Tollemache,  Mr.  Gladstone  "  denied  genius  to 
Huxley,  but  allowed  it  to  Owen  and  Romanes  "  ! 2 

Among  the  outside  criticisms  which  the  controversy 
provoked  was  that  which  suggested  that  both  dispu- 
tants "  might  be  better  occupied  than  in  fighting  over 
the  Gadarene  pigs."  Upon  this  Huxley  pertinently 
commented  : — 

If  these  too  famous  swine  were  the  only  parties  to 
the  suit,  I,  for  my  part,  should  fully  admit  the  justice 
of  the  rebuke.  But,  under  the  beneficent  rule  of  the 
Court  of  Chancery,  in  former  times,  it  was  not  un- 
common that  a  quarrel  about  a  few  perches  of  worth- 
less land  ended  in  the  ruin  of  ancient  families  and  the 
engulfing  of  great  estates ;  and  I  think  that  our  ad- 
monisher  failed  to  observe  the  analogy — to  note  the 
momentous  consequences  of  the  judgment  which  may 
be  awarded  in  the  present  apparently  insignificant 
action  in  re  the  swineherds  of  Gadara. 

The  immediate  effect  of  such  judgment  will  be  the 
decision  of  the  question,  whether  the  men  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  are  to  adopt  the  demonology  of  the 

1889,  Huxley  says  :  "  Gladstone's  attack  on  you  is  one  of  the  best 
things  he  has  written.  I  do  not  think  there  is  more  than  fifty  per 
cent,  more  verbiage  than  is  necessary,  nor  any  sentence  with  more 
than  two  meanings." — Literary  Guide,  December,  1901. 

» II.  341.  «  Talks  with  Mr.  Gladstone. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  2IQ 

men  of  the  first  century,  as  divinely  revealed  truth,  or 
to  reject  it,  as  degrading  falsity.1 


Yet,  complete  as  is  the  discomfiture  of  the  current 
theology  in  its  conflict  with  historical  criticism  of  its 
documents,  the  Impregnable  Rock  of  Holy  Scripture  re- 
mains in  demand,  and  Dr.  Wace  is,  we  suppose,  still 
a  power  in  the  pulpit.  The  chains  of  custom  and 
tradition  still  bind,  and  indifference  still  paralyses,  the 
souls  of  men.  In  this,  and  not  in  active  and  deep 
conviction  of  the  truth  of  its  creeds,  the  strength  of 
orthodoxy  lies.  It  has  made  unto  itself  a  more  sure 
habitation  in  yielding  to  "  the  form  and  pressure  "  of 
the  time ;  its  official  representatives  have  never  aban- 
doned that  defence  of  privilege  which  is  of  greater 
moment  than  defence  of  what  is  left  of  the  faith,  and 
the  roots  of  ecclesiastical  institutions  have  become 
more  closely  intertwined  with  those  of  the  body 
politic,  so  that  attack  upon  the  one  is  menace  to  the 
other. 

Nevertheless,  "  wisdom  is  justified  of  her  children." 
"  Much  water  has  flowed  under  the  bridges "  since 
1864,  when  a  number  of  clergymen,  consistently 
enough,  formulated  a  declaration  of  faith  that  Jesus 
taught  the  doctrine  of  everlasting  punishment,  and 
begged  their  brethren  to  sign  it  "for  the  love  of 

1  Coll.  Essays,  v.  p.  414. 


220  HUXLEY 

God";1  or  even  since  1891,  when  another  group, 
who  had  not  bowed  the  knee  to  the  Baal  of  modern 
scholarship,  affirmed  their  belief  that  "  the  canonical 
scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  declare 
incontrovertibly  the  actual  historical  truth  in  all  rec- 
ords, both  of  past  events  and  of  the  delivery  of  pre- 
dictions to  be  thereafter  fulfilled."2  In  fact,  the 
abrasion  of  incredible  and  inhuman  dogmas  has  gone 
on  at  so  rapid  a  rate  that  belief  in  them  might  be 
thought  to  be  limited  to  the  vulgar  and  illiterate, 
were  it  not  for  restatements  of  the  following  order, 
which  is  quoted  from  the  widely  circulated  worldly 
and  other-worldly  British  Weekly.  In  commenting 
on  certain  articles  in  the  Encyclopedia  Biblica  the 
reader  is  advised  to  "  take  the  Gospels,  the  Acts,  and 
the  Epistles,  and  erase  from  them  as  incredible  every- 
thing that  does  not  affirm  miracle.  He  will  find  that 
the  narrative  of  miracle  is  so  welded  with  facts  and 
words  and  inferences,  that  to  cut  it  out  is  to  reduce 
the  whole  to  a  rag-heap."  But  these  strident  voices 
are  softened  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  new  knowledge. 
Dogmas  are  dying — very  slowly — as  other  supersti- 
tions have  died,  because  they  cannot  adapt  themselves 
to  changed  conditions.  They  are  explained,  and  their 
explanation  is  their  doom. 

1  Life  and  Letters  of  Dean  Stanley,  ii.  p.  158. 
•  Coll.  Eaays,  v.  p.  23. 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST  221 

Truly,  "  wisdom  is  justified  of  her  children " : 
well-nigh  all  for  which  Huxley  contended  is  conceded, 
and  the  rest  will  follow  in  due  time.  The  admissions 
as  to  the  unhistorical  element  in  the  Bible  which  are 
made  by  modern  theologians  are  not  limited  to  the 
Old  Testament.  The  great  Dictionary  of  the  Bible 
already  referred  to,  in  which  the  best  scholarship  of 
Britain  and  the  Continent  is  embodied,  and  which  has 
as  its  chief  editor  "  the  Oriel  Professor  of  the  In- 
terpretation of  Holy  Scripture  at  Oxford,"  contains 
articles,  as  quotations  have  shown  already  (see  p.  199, 
200),  which  a  generation  ago  would  have  given  the 
Dean  of  Arches  a  busy  time  over  trials  for  heresy. 
In  the  article  on  "  Jesus  "  he  is  spoken  of  by  the  late 
Dr.  Bruce  as  "  the  child  of  his  time  and  people," 
and,  concerning  the  Passion,  the  same  writer  says, 
11  For  modern  criticism  the  story,  even  in  its  most 
historic  version,  is  not  pure  truth,  but  truth  mixed 
with  doubtful  legend,"  although,  "  when  examined 
with  a  critical  microscope,  not  a  few  of  the  relative 
incidents  stand  the  test."  In  the  article  on  the 
"  Gospels  "  Professor  Schmiedel  doubts  "  whether  any 
credible  elements  are  to  be  found  in  them,"  and  from 
the  entire  body  of  the  reported  sayings  of  Jesus  he 
chooses  five  passages  which,  it  is  suggested,  may  form 
"  foundation-pillars  for  a  truly  scientific  life  of  Jesus," 
in  whom,  Professor  Schmiedel  adds,  "  we  have  to  do 


222  HUXLEY 

with  a  completely  human  being.  The  divine  is  to  be 
sought  in  him  only  in  the  form  in  which  it  is  capable 
of  being  found  in  a  man."  Of  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
which  he  places  towards  the  latter  half  of  the  second 
century,  this  estimate  is  given  — 


A  book  which  begins  by  declaring  Jesus  to  be  the 
logos  of  God,  and  ends  by  representing  a  cohort  of 
Roman  soldiers  as  falling  to  the  ground  at  the  majesty 
of  His  appearance,  and  by  representing  one  hundred 
pounds  of  ointment  as  having  been  used  at  His  em- 
balming, ought  by  these  facts  alone  to  be  spared  such 
a  misunderstanding  of  its  true  character  as  would  be 
implied  in  supposing  that  it  meant  to  be  a  historical 
work. 


After  such  strong  meat  it  would  seem  but  the  offer- 
ing of  milk  to  babes  for  the  writers  to  suggest  that 
the  narrative  of  the  blasting  of  the  fig-tree  by  Jesus 
has  "improbabilities  which  are  obvious  and  cannot 
be  explained  away,"  or  that  in  the  Zaccheus  incident 
"  there  are  difficulties  in  the  way  of  conceding  more 
than  an  ideal  truth  to  this  delightful  story." 

From  these  concessions  there  is  but  a  short  step  to 
the  larger  concessions  of  the  school  of  Schleier- 
macher,  revived  by  Sabatier,  Gardner,  and  others,  who 
base  Christianity  on  the  facts  of  religious  experience, 
transferring,  as  the  last-named  writer  explains,  "  the 
support  of  Christian  doctrine  from  history  to  psychol- 


THE     CONTROVERSIALIST 


223 


ogy,  from  the  history  of  facts  to  the  history  of  ideas." 
Upon  which  the  obvious  comment  is  that  the  ad- 
herents of  every  other  religion  may  find  equal  validity 
for  it  in  the  facts  of  their  experience. 


THE  CONSTRUCTOR 

IN  the  prologue  to  his  Controversial  Essays  Huxley 
says,  "  I  have  hitherto  dwelt  upon  scientific  Natural- 
ism chiefly  in  its  critical  and  destructive  aspect.  But 
the  present  incarnation  of  the  spirit  of  the  Renascence 
differs  from  its  predecessor  in  the  eighteenth  century 
in  that  it  builds  up  as  well  as  pulls  down." l  What 
the  structure  should  be  is  indicated  in  his  controversy 
with  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  to  this  may  be  added  a  pas- 
sage from  a  letter  to  Mr.  Romanes  :  — 

I  have  a  great  respect  for  the  Nazarenism  of  Jesus 
— very  little  for  later  "  Christianity."  But  the  only 
religion  that  makes  appeal  to  me  is  prophetic  Judaism. 
Add  to  it  something  from  the  best  Stoics,  and  some- 
thing from  Spinoza,  and  something  from  Goethe,  and 
there  is  a  religion  for  men.  Some  of  these  days  I 
think  I  will  make  a  cento  out  of  the  works  of  these 
people.8 

The  Hebrew  prophets  made  special  appeal  to  Him, 
since,  "to  do  justly,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk 
humbly  before  thy  God  "  was  to  base  religion  on  the 
stable  foundation  of  human  relations.  There  would 

1  Coll.  Essays,  v.  p.  41.  *  II.  339. 

224 


THE    CONSTRUCTOR  225 

be  no  need  to  omit  the  last  words  of  that  verse,  be- 
cause the  doctrine  of  evolution  is  not  necessarily 
anti-theistic. 

It  does  not  even  come  into  contact  with  Theism, 
considered  as  a  philosophical  doctrine.  That  with 
which  it  does  collide,  and  with  which  it  is  absolutely 
inconsistent,  is  the  conception  of  creation  which  the- 
ological speculators  have  based  upon  the  history  nar- 
rated in  the  opening  of  the  book  of  Genesis.  There 
is  a  great  deal  of  talk  and  not  a  little  lamentation 
about  the  so-called  religious  difficulties  which  physical 
science  has  created.  In  theological  science,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  it  has  created  none.  Not  a  solitary 
problem  presents  itself  to  the  philosophical  Theist  at 
the  present  day,  which  has  not  existed  from  the  time 
that  philosophers  began  to  think  out  the  logical 
grounds  and  the  logical  consequences  of  Theism. 
All  the  real  or  imaginary  perplexities  which  flow  from 
the  conception  of  the  universe  as  a  determinate  mech- 
anism, are  equally  involved  in  the  assumption  of  an 
Eternal,  Omnipotent,  and  Omniscient  Deity.  The 
theological  equivalent  of  the  scientific  conception  of 
order  is  Providence  ;  and  the  doctrine  of  determinism 
follows  as  surely  from  the  attributes  of  foreknowledge 
assumed  by  the  theologian,  as  from  the  universality  of 
natural  causation  assumed  by  the  man  of  science. 
The  angels  in  '  Paradise  Lost '  would  have  found  the 
task  of  enlightening  Adam  upon  the  mysteries  of 
"Fate,  Foreknowledge,  and  Free-will"  not  a  whit 
more  difficult,  if  their  pupil  had  been  educated  in  a 
"  Real-schule,"  and  trained  in  every  laboratory  of  a 
modern  university.  In  respect  of  the  great  problems 
of  philosophy  the  post-Darwinian  generation  is,  in 
one  sense,  exactly  where  the  prae-Darwinian  gener- 
ation were.  They  remain  insoluble.  But  the  present 


226  HUXLEY 

generation  has  the  advantage  of  being  better  provided 
with  the  means  of  freeing  itself  from  the  tyranny  of 
certain  sham  solutions.1 

What  Renan  says  of  Marcus  Aurelius  applies  to 
Huxley  :  "  he  resolutely  severed  moral  beauty  from  all 
definite  theology ;  he  did  not  permit  duty  to  depend 
on  any  metaphysical  opinions  concerning  a  First 
Cause."  Hence  his  opposition  to  the  theory  of 
morals  as  innate,  and  as  of  supernatural  origin. 
Every  man,  it  is  held  by  the  intuitive  school,  is  born 
with  the  faculty  of  discerning  right  from  wrong, 
while,  superfluous  as  this  would  seem,  the  declaration 
of  what  actions  are  right  and  what  actions  are  wrong 
is  to  be  found  in  divinely  given  codes,  of  which  that 
of  the  Ten  Words  or  Commandments  is  cited  as  an 
example.  Hence  springs  the  well-nigh  universal  be- 
lief in  the  interdependence  of  morals  and  dogma;  the 
belief  that  to  err  in  the  one  is  to  err  in  the  other. 
Hence,  also,  the  historical  accuracy  of  the  narrative 
being  assumed,  the  belief  that  man's  power  of  choice 
as  a  free  agent  between  good  and  evil  was  first  exer- 
cised in  Eden.2  Less  momentous,  according  to  cur- 

1  Huxley's  chapter  in  Darwin's  Life  and  Letters,  ii.  p.  203  ;  and 
cf.  ii.  p.  302. 

»The  essence  of  that  which  is  improperly  called  the  freewill 
doctrine  is  that  occasionally,  at  any  rate,  human  volition  is  self- 
caused,  that  is  to  say,  not  caused  at  all ;  for  to  cause  oneself  one 
must  have  anteceded  oneself — which  is,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  diffi- 
cult to  imagine.—  Coll.  Essays,  ix.  p.  142. 


THE    CONSTRUCTOR  22y 

rent  theories  of  the  consequence  of  Adam's  fall  to 
mankind,  but  more  impressive,  was  the  scene  at  the 
foot  of  Mount  Sinai,  when  Jahveh  made  known 
through  Moses  that  He  would  appear  in  "  a  thick 
cloud,"  so  that  the  people  might  hear  Him  when  He 
spoke  to  their  leader.  And  they  beheld,  the  writer  of 
Exodus  narrates,  the  descent  of  the  god  in  fire  upon 
the  mountain,  when  "  God  spake  all  these  words "  of 
the  Ten  Commandments,  and  wrote  them  with  His 
own  finger  upon  two  tables  of  stone.  Thus,  in  a 
code,  the  legend  of  whose  divine  origin  is  accepted 
throughout  Christendom,  the  making  of  images  and 
murder,  the  breaking  of  the  seventh  day  of  the  week 
as  a  rest-day  and  theft,  are  put  upon  the  same  plane 
of  ethics,  and  the  confusion  between  sin  against  man 
and  offences  against  ritual  emphasised. 

Human  nature  being  what  it  is,  the  supersession  of 
theories  of  ethical  codes  as  integral  parts  of  revelation 
seems  as  far  off  as  the  Greek  Kalends.  Nevertheless, 
some  advance  towards  rational  theories  of  morals  is 
being  made,  and  in  this  matter  Herbert  Spencer,  in 
his  Data  of  Ethics^  and  Huxley,  in  more  fugitive 
form,  have  done  much.  That  death  is  not  the  penalty 
of  sin  is  proved  by  the  indisputable  evidence  of  the 
fossil-yielding  rocks ;  but  wrong-doing  is  still  held  to 
be  an  infraction  of  divine  law,  and  to  involve  pains 
and  penalties  in  a  future  state.  As  opposed  to  this, 


228  HUXLEY 

wrong-doing  is  held,  under  the  doctrine  of  evolution, 
to  be  an  infraction  of  human  law. 

The  actions  we  call  sinful  are  as  much  the  conse- 
quence of  the  order  of  nature  as  those  we  call  virtu- 
ous. They  are  all  part  and  parcel  of  the  struggle  for 
existence  through  which  all  living  things  have  passed, 
and  they  have  become  sins  because  man  alone  seeks  a 
higher  life  in  voluntary  association.1 

We  are  in  ignorance  alike  as  to  the  beginnings  of 
consciousness  and  the  beginnings  of  ethics.  But  as 
we  trace  the  evolution  of  the  nervous  system  from 
irritability  in  the  lowest  organisms  to  sensibility  in  its 
ever-increasing  complexity,  till  the  higher  we  ascend 
the  more  acute  do  we  find  the  feelings  associated  with 
pain  and  pleasure,  so  it  is  permissible  to  trace  the 
germs  of  morality,  which  lie  in  sympathy,  among  the 
social  animals.  Into  the  marvels  of  their  organisa- 
tion, perhaps  more  astounding  among  invertebrates, 
as  ants  and  bees,  than  among  the  higher  gregarious 
mammals,  there  is  neither  need  nor  space  to  enter  here ; 
enough  that  the  links  in  the  chain  of  psychical  life  of 
man  and  the  creatures  beneath  him  are  unbroken. 
Moreover,  the  evidences  as  to  the  social  bases  of 
ethics  are  contained  in  human  history.2  The  terms 

« II.  282. 

*  To  whatever  extent  Mr.  Balfour  may  draw  untenable  inferences 
from  such  premises,  the  admission  made  in  the  new  edition  of 
his  Foundations  of  Belief  is  significant.  He  says  that  "study  of 


THE    CONSTRUCTOR  229 

"  good  "  and  "  evil  "  have  no  meaning  till  communal 
life  begins.  Where  there  is  no  society  there  is  no 
sin.  A  solitary  man  on  an  uninhabited  island  can  do 
no  wrong,  but  when  Robinson  Crusoe  meets  Friday, 
the  question  of  behaviour  of  one  to  the  other  arises ; 
and  conduct  is  ethic.  Restraint  on  individual  action 
begins ;  and  the  morality  of  the  action  is  determined 
by  circumstances  ;  hence  the  relativity  of  morals,  and 
the  origin  of  artificial  codes  which,  ruled  solely  by 
conventions,  make  a  breach  of  etiquette  a  less 
pardonable  offence  than  the  seduction  of  a  woman. 

Upon  the  general  basis  of  ethics  Huxley  speaks 
with  no  uncertain  sound  : — 

Moral  duty  consists  in  the  observance  of  those 
rules  of  conduct  which  contribute  to  the  welfare  of 
society,  and,  by  implication,  of  the  individuals  who 
compose  it. 

The  end  of  society  is  peace  and  mutual  protection, 
so  that  the  individual  may  reach  the  fullest  and 
highest  life  attainable  by  man.  The  rules  of  conduct 
by  which  this  end  is  to  be  attained  are  discoverable — 
like  the  other  so-called  laws  of  Nature — by  observa- 
tion and  experiment,  and  only  in  that  way. 

Some  thousands  of  years  of  such  experience  have 

evolution  and  modern  anthropology  is  making  us  realise  that  the 
beginnings  of  morality  are  lost  among  the  self-preserving  and 
race-prolonging  instincts  which  we  share  with  the  animal  creation; 
that  religion  in  its  higher  forms  is  a  development  of  infantine  and 
often  brutal  superstitions ;  and  that  in  the  pedigree  of  the  noblest 
and  most  subtle  of  our  emotions  are  to  be  discerned  primitive 
strains  of  coarsest  quality." 


230  HUXLEY 

led  to  the  generalisations  that  stealing  and  murder,  for 
example,  are  inconsistent  with  the  ends  of  society. 
There  is  no  more  doubt  that  they  are  so  than  that 
unsupported  stones  tend  to  fall.  The  man  who 
steals  or  murders  breaks  his  implied  contract  with 
society,  and  forfeits  all  protection.  He  becomes  an 
outlaw,  to  be  dealt  with  as  any  other  feral  creature. 
Criminal  law  indicates  the  ways  which  have  proved 
most  convenient  for  dealing  with  him. 

All  this  would  be  true  if  men  had  no  "  moral 
sense  "  at  all,  just  as  there  are  rules  of  perspective 
which  must  be  strictly  observed  by  a  draughtsman, 
and  are  quite  independent  of  his  having  any  artistic 
sense. 

The  moral  sense  is  a  very  complex  affair — de- 
pendent in  part  upon  associations  of  pleasure  and 
pain,  approbation  and  disapprobation,  formed  by 
education  in  early  youth,  but  in  part  also  on  an  in- 
nate sense  of  moral  beauty  and  ugliness  (how  origi- 
nated need  not  be  discussed),  which  is  possessed  by 
some  people  in  great  strength,  while  some  are  totally 
devoid  of  it — just  as  some  children  draw,  or  are  en- 
chanted by  music  while  mere  infants,  while  others  do 
not  know  "  Cherry  Ripe  "  from  "  Rule  Britannia," 
nor  can  represent  the  form  of  the  simplest  thing  to 
the  end  of  their  lives.1 

Now  for  this  sort  of  people  there  is  no  reason  why 
they  should  discharge  any  sort  of  moral  duty,  ex- 
cept from  fear  of  punishment  in  all  its  grades,  from 
mere  disapprobation  to  hanging,  and  the  duty  of 
society  is  to  see  that  they  live  under  wholesome  fear 
of  such  punishment,  short,  sharp,  and  decisive. 

For  the  people  with   a  keen  innate  sense  of  moral 

beauty  there  is  no  need  of  any  other  motive.     What 

thev   want  is  knowledge  of  the  things  they  may  do 

and  must  leave  undone,  if  the  welfare  of  society  is 

1  Cf.  Coll.  Assays,  vi.  p.  239. 


THE    CONSTRUCTOR 


23I 


to  be  attained.  Good  people  so  often  forget  this  that 
some  of  them  occasionally  require  hanging  as  much 
as  the  bad. 

If  you  ask  why  the  moral  inner  sense  is  to  be 
(under  due  limitations)  obeyed,  and  why  the  few  who 
are  steered  by  it  move  the  mass  in  whom  it  is  weak  ? 
I  can  only  reply  by  putting  another  question,  Why 
do  the  few  in  whom  the  sense  of  beauty  is  strong — 
Shakespeare,  Raffaele,  Beethoven — carry  the  less  en- 
dowed multitude  away  ?  But  they  do,  and  always 
will.  People  who  overlook  that  fact  attend  neither 
to  history  nor  to  what  goes  on  about  them. 

Benjamin  Franklin  was  a  shrewd,  excellent,  kindly 
man.  I  have  a  great  respect  for  him.  The  force  of 
genial  common-sense  respectability  could  no  further 
go.  George  Fox  was  the  very  antipodes  of  all  this, 
and  yet  one  understands  how  he  came  to  move  the 
world  of  his  day,  and  Franklin  did  not. 

As  to  whether  we  can  all  fulfil  the  moral  law,  I 
should  say  hardly  any  of  us.  Some  of  us  are  utterly 
incapable  of  fulfilling  its  plainest  dictates.  As  there 
are  men  bo'rn  physically  cripples  and  intellectually 
idiots,  so  there  are  some  who  are  moral  cripples  and 
idiots,  and  can  be  kept  straight  not  even  by  punish- 
ment. For  these  people  there  is  nothing  but  shut- 
ting-up,  or  extirpation.1 

In  the  early  stages  of  man's  history  ethics  had  no 
connection  with  theology. 

With  the  advance  of  civilisation,  and  the  growth 
of  cities  and  of  nations  by  the  coalescence  of  families 
and  of  tribes,  the  rules  which  constitute  the  common 
foundation  of  morality  and  of  law  become  more  nu- 
merous and  complicated,  and  the  temptations  to  break 

i  II.  305,  306. 


232  HUXLEY 

or  evade  many  of  them  stronger.  In  the  absence  of  a 
clear  apprehension  of  the  natural  sanctions  of  these 
rules,  a  supernatural  sanction  was  assumed ;  and 
imagination  supplied  the  motives  which  reason  was 
supposed  to  be  incompetent  to  furnish.  Religion,  at 
first  independent  of  morality,  gradually  took  morality 
under  its  protection ;  and  the  supernaturalists  have 
ever  since  tried  to  persuade  mankind  that  the  ex- 
istence of  ethics  is  bound  up  with  that  of  super- 
naturalism.1 


It  has  been  so  much  the  worse  for  both.  For  if 
the  ethical  code  is  low,  the  conception  of  the  god 
who  is  assumed  to  be  its  author  suffers  as  the  ethical 
ideal  advances ;  and  if  the  ethics  are  made  dependent 
upon  a  theology  which  becomes  discredited,  they 
stand  or  fall  with  it.  Doubtless,  in  rude  and  turbu- 
lent ages,  no  small  gain  accrued  through  the  associa- 
tion of  a  humane  code  of  conduct  with  supernatural 
dogmas,  but  the  engine  of  aggrandisement  which  this 
put  into  the  hands  of  sacerdotalism  rendered  the 
divorce  imperative  as  society  advanced. 

Theological  apologists  who  insist  that  morality  will 
vanish  if  their  dogmas  are  exploded,  would  do  well  to 
consider  the  fact  that,  in  the  matter  of  intellectual 
veracity,  science  is  already  a  long  way  ahead  of  the 
Churches;  and  that,  in  this  particular,  it  is  exerting 
an  educational  influence  on  mankind  of  which  the 
Churches  have  shown  themselves  utterly  incapable.2 

"  Coll.  Essays,  v.  p.  53.,  and  cf.  iv.  p.  361. 
•  Coll.  Essays,  v.  p.  142. 


THE    CONSTRUCTOR 


233 


Moreover,  a  code  of  morals  resting  on  the  assumption 
of  supernatural  authority  seeks  to  enforce  its  decrees 
by  threats  of  penalties  inflicted  under  supernatural 
conditions,  threats  which  are  found  to  be  feebly 
operative  upon  conduct.  Discarding  such  assump- 
tion, the  evolutionist  appeals  to  more  tangible  mo- 
tives ;  to  the  fact  that  actions  make  or  mar  other 
lives,  and  retard  or  quicken  the  progress  of  mankind. 
He  shows  that  the  law  of  causation  operates  in  the 
moral  sphere,  and  that  the  consequences  of  our  deeds 
are  immediate,  or,  in  large  degree,  measurable.  The 
brevity  of  life  thus  becomes  a  sharper  spur  to  duty, 
and  the  ultimate  destiny  of  the  race,  as  predicted  by 
science,  a  stimulus  to  smooth  its  career. 
It  may,  Huxley  says, 

be  well  to  remember  that  the  highest  level  of  moral 
aspiration  recorded  in  history  was  reached  by  a  few 
ancient  Jews — Micah,  Isaiah,  and  the  rest — who  took 
no  count  whatever  of  what  might  or  might  not  happen 
to  them  after  death.  It  is  not  obvious  to  me  why 
the  same  point  should  not  by-and-by  be  reached  by 
the  Gentiles.1 

This  all-important  question  of  social  ethics  filled 
much  of  his  thought  from  the  old  Rotherhithe  days  to 
the  end.  It  inspired  the  noble  Romanes  Lecture, 
concerning  which  he  wrote  to  the  founder,  "  Of 

1 II.  304. 


234  HUXLEY 

course  I  will  keep  absolutely  clear  of  theology.  But 
I  have  long  had  fermenting  in  my  head  some  notions 
about  the  relations  of  ethics  and  evolution  (or  rather 
the  absence  of  such  as  are  commonly  supposed) 
which,  I  think,  will  be  interesting  to  such  an  audi- 
ence as  I  may  expect."1  The  discourse  provoked 
much  controversy  and  even  more  misunderstanding, 
causing  Huxley  regret  that  he  did  not  remember 
Faraday's  useful  precept  to  lecturers,  to  assume  that 
even  "select  and  cultivated"  listeners  knew  nothing 
whatever  of  the  subject.2 

Some  of  Huxley's  audience  took  the  lecture  as  a 
senile  recantation  of  the  faith  as  it  is  in  Evolution  ; 
while,  since  there  is  no  logical  halting-point  between 
Agnosticism  and  Catholicism,  the  late  Professor  St. 
George  Mivart,  whose  fate  it  was  to  be  excommuni- 
cated by  his  Church  because  he  refused  to  sign  a 
monstrous  assent  to  everything  in  the  Bible,  wel- 
comed the  lecture  as  indicating  a  possible  reconcilia- 
tion of  Huxley  with  the  Vatican.3 

Ethics  and  Evolution,  to  the  preparation  of  which 
Huxley  gave  the  utmost  care,  and  which  will  abide  as 
a  masterpiece  of  sonorous  English  prose,  was  the 
amplification  of  arguments  used  by  him  in  various 
previous  utterances.  It  was  an  effort,  he  explained 

1 II-  35°-  •  Coll.  £ssa?s,  ix.  p.  vii. 

»  Nineteenth  Century,  Aug.,  1893,  p.  210. 


THE    CONSTRUCTOR  235 

to  more  than  one  correspondent, "  to  put  the  Christian 
doctrine,  that  Satan  is  the  Prince  of  this  world,  upon 
a  scientific  foundation  "  !  The  main  thesis  was  briefly 
sketched  in  an  essay,  published  five  years  previously 
(in  1888),  on  the  "Struggle  for  Existence  in  Human 
Society,"  and  appropriately  reprinted  in  the  volume 
containing  the  Romanes  Lecture. 

In  the  strict  sense  of  the  word  "  nature,"  it  denotes 
the  sum  of  the  phenomenal  world,  of  that  which  has 
been,  and  is,  and  will  be ;  and  society,  like  art,  is 
therefore  a  part  of  nature.  But  it  is  convenient  to 
distinguish  those  parts  of  nature  in  which  man  plays 
the  part  of  immediate  cause,  as  something  apart;  and, 
therefore,  society,  like  art,  is  usefully  to  be  considered 
as  distinct  from  nature.  It  is  the  more  desirable,  and 
even  necessary,  to  make  this  distinction,  since  society 
differs  from  nature  in  having  a  definite  moral  object; 
whence  it  comes  about  that  the  course  shaped  by  the 
ethical  man — the  member  of  society  or  citizen — 
necessarily  runs  counter  to  that  which  the  non-ethical 
man — the  primitive  savage,  or  man  as  a  mere  mem- 
ber of  the  animal  kingdom — tends  to  adopt.  The 
latter  fights  out  the  struggle  for  existence  to  the  bitter 
end',  like  any  other  animal ;  the  former  devotes  his 
best  energies  to  the  object  of  setting  limits  to  the 
struggle.  .  .  .  The  ideal  of  the  ethical  man  is 
to  limit  his  freedom  of  action  to  a  sphere  in  which  he 
does  not  interfere  with  the  freedom  of  others ;  he 
seeks  the  common  weal  as  much  as  his  own,  and  in- 
deed, as  an  essential  part  of  his  own  welfare.  Peace 
is  both  end  and  means  with  him  ;  and  he  founds  his 
life  on  a  more  or  less  complete  self-restraint,  which 
is  the  negation  of  the  unlimited  struggle  for  existence. 


236  HUXLEY 

He  tries  to  escape  from  his  place  in  the  animal  king- 
dom, founded  on  the  free  development  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  non-moral  evolution,  and  to  establish  a  king- 
dom of  Man,  governed  solely  upon  the  principle  of 
moral  evolution.  For  society  not  only  has  a  moral 
end,  but,  in  its  perfection,  social  life  is  embodied 
morality.1 

In  1890  Huxley  writes  :  "  Of  moral  purpose  I  see 
no  trace  in  Nature.  That  is  an  article  of  exclusively 
human  manufacture — and  very  much  to  our  credit.2 
George  Meredith  gives  rhythmic  expression  to  that 
view  in  his  great  poem  on  man's  relation  to  Nature: — 

"  He  may  entreat,  aspire, 
He  may  despair,  and  she  has  never  heed ; 
She  drinking  his  warm  sweat  will  soothe  his  need, 
Not  his  desire."  * 

To  the  many  the  argument  seemed  paradoxical,  for 
how,  it  was  asked,  could  ethical  nature,  as  the  off- 
spring of  cosmic  nature,  be  at  enmity  with  it?  In  a 
Prolegomena,4  which  is  longer  than  the  lecture,  Hux- 
ley contended  that  the  seeming  paradox  is  a  truth. 

Taking,  as  an  example,  the  ground  on  which  his 
house  was  built,  he  shows  how  the  industry  of  man 
has  converted  a  patch  of  weed-choked,  economically 
unproductive  soil  into  a  fruitful  garden,  and  how,  if 

>  ColL  Essays,  ix.  pp.  202,  205.  *  II.  268. 

»  Poems  and  Lyrics  of  the  Joy  of  Earth,  p.  119. 
«  Coll.  Essays,  ix.  pp.  1^45. 


THE    CONSTRUCTOR  237 

the  skill  and  labour  by  which  this  has  been  done  are 
withdrawn,  nature,  whose  action  never  pauses,  will 
reassert  sway,  and  convert  the  place  into  a  wilderness. 
The  garden  is  a  work  of  art,  as  is  the  house  which 
stands  in  it ;  as  is  everything  that  man  has  produced. 
And  the  effect  of  all  that  he  does  is  to  oppose,  and, 
for  a  time,  arrest,  the  cosmic  process,  limiting  the 
area  of  ceaseless  struggle  and  competition.  Applying 
this  to  human  society,  which,  "  at  its  origin,  was  as 
much  a  product  of  organic  necessity  as  that  of  the 
bees,"  the  "  ape  and  tiger  "  instincts  are  found  domi- 
nant. It  was  based  on  selfishness.  The  race  was  to 
the  swift,  and  the  battle  to  the  strong.  Even  then, 
however,  in  the  earliest  grouping  of  a  few  families 
into  clans  or  gentes,  the  blood-tie,  whose  source  is  in 
the  parent,  engendered  a  sympathy  which  assured 
unity,  and,  therefore,  some  restraint  on  individual  as- 
sertion. For  sympathy  is  the  germ-plasm  of  ethics. 
Knowledge,  the  only  begetter  of  a  wider  sympathy, 
breaks  down  tribal  divisions,  and  with  the  obvious 
advantage  which  cooperation  secures,  enlarges  the 
narrow  borders  of  primitive  altruism,  limits  the  area 
of  conflict,  and  mitigates  the  horrors  of  a  state  of 
warfare  which,  at  the  outset,  was  chronic.  But  the 
cosmic  process  is  checked  only  locally  and  intermit- 
tently. To  this  the  state  of  mankind,  after  thou- 
sands of  years  of  advance  from  the  feral  state,  wit- 


238  HUXLEY 

nesses,  since  only  in  the  minority  of  all  who  have 
ever  lived  has  that  advance  been  made,  and  even 
among  these  there  needs  small  provocation  to  arouse 
the  lightly  sleeping  "  tiger."  Hence,  wherever  self- 
restraint  is  practised,  there  is  checking  of  the  cosmic 
process  of  bitter  struggle  by  the  ethical,  defined  by 
Huxley  as  the  u  evolution  of  the  feelings  out  of  which 
the  primitive  bonds  of  human  society  are  so  largely 
forged  into  the  organised  and  personified  sympathy  we 
call  conscience."  l  Then  comes  into  play  the  golden 
rule  of  Jesus,  of  Confucius,  and  of  Plato:  "May  I 
do  to  others  as  I  would  that  they  should  do  to  me."3 
If  the  ethical  process  is  not  a  part  of  the  cosmical 
process,  it  must  have  been  imported,  and  is  therefore 
to  be  referred  to  supernatural  intervention.  But  as 
opposing  one  action  against  another,  it  has  its  corre- 
spondences in  man's  checks  upon  the  operation  of 
natural  selection,  and  in  the  forces  at  play  within  the 
cosmos  itself.  For  the  equilibrium  towards  which  all 
things  in  the  universe  are  tending  is  arrested  by  the 
activity  of  the  conflicting  agencies  of  repulsion  and  at- 
traction ;  and  in  all  the  mechanical  means  whereby 
human  life  is  strengthened  and  lengthened,  the  action 
of  natural  selection  is  retarded.  And,  as  already  ob- 
served, the  rudiments  of  ethics  are  found  deep  down 
in  the  animal  world.  "Among  birds  and  mammals 
»  CoU.  Essays,  ix.  p.  30.  •  Laws,  xi.  913  (Jowett's  trans.). 


THE    CONSTRUCTOR  239 

societies  are  formed  of  which  the  bond  in  many  cases 
seems  to  be  purely  psychological — that  is  to  say,  it 
appears  to  depend  upon  the  liking  of  the  individuals 
for  one  another's  company.  Love  and  fear  come  into 
play,  and  enforce  a  greater  or  less  renunciation  of 
self-will." ' 

But  "  the  theory  of  evolution  encourages  no  millen- 
nial anticipations."  As  the  story  of  the  formation 
and  dissolution  of  the  solar  system  and  kindred  aggre- 
gations is  but  a  chapter  in  a  history  which  had  no  be- 
ginning and  will  have  no  end,  so  life  as  a  whole  upon 
this  globe  is  but  a  brief  chapter  of  that  history,  and 
the  life  of  man  a  momentary  episode  in  the  chapter. 

Neither  optimist  nor  pessimist  in  a  world  which  he 
confessed  was  "a  hopeless  riddle,"2  Huxley  was  no 
dweller  at  ease  in  a  scientific  Zion.  As  in  the  intel- 
lectual sphere  he  had  exercised  the  spirit  of  inquiry 
by  which  alone  advance  in  knowledge  is  possible,  so 
in  the  moral  sphere  he  gave  expression  to  the  spirit  of 
discontent  by  which  alone  amelioration  is  possible. 

There  are  [he  said]  two  things  I  really  care  about 
— one  is  the  progress  of  scientific  thought,  and  the 
other  is  the  bettering  of  the  condition  of  the  masses  of 
the  people  by  bettering  them  in  the  way  of  lifting  them- 
selves out  of  the  misery  which  has  hitherto  been  the 
lot  of  the  majority  of  them.  Posthumous  fame  is 
not  particularly  attractive  to  me,  but,  if  I  am  to  be 

1  Coll.  Essays,  ix.  p.  115.  t  n.  134. 


240  HUXLEY 

remembered  at  all,  I  would  rather  it  should  be  as  u  a 
man  who  did  his  best  to  help  the  people  "  than  by  any 
other  title. 

Even  the  best  of  modern  civilisations  appears  to  me 
to  exhibit  a  condition  of  mankind  which  neither  em- 
bodies any  worthy  ideal  nor  even  possesses  the  merit 
of  stability.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  express  my  opinion 
that,  if  there  is  no  hope  of  a  large  improvement  of 
the  condition  of  the  greater  part  of  the  human  family  ; 
if  it  is  true  that  the  increase  of  knowledge,  the  win- 
ning of  a  greater  dominion  over  Nature  which  is  its 
consequence,  and  the  wealth  which  follows  on  that 
dominion,  are  to  make  no  difference  in  the  extent  and 
the  intensity  of  Want,  with  its  concomitant  physical 
and  moral  degradation,  among  the  masses  of  the  peo- 
ple, I  should  hail  the  advent  of  some  kindly  comet, 
which  would  sweep  the  whole  affair  away,  as  a  desir- 
able consummation. 

What  profits  it  to  the  human  Prometheus  that  he 
has  stolen  the  fire  of  heaven  to  be  his  servant,  and 
that  the  spirits  of  the  earth  and  the  air  obey  him,  if 
the  vulture  of  pauperism  is  eternally  to  tear  his  very 
vitals  and  keep  him  on  the  brink  of  destruction  ? l 


Moved  by  these  gloomy  facts  to  "  work  while  it  is 
yet  day,"  Huxley  found  little,  save  for  adverse  criti- 
cism, in  the  social  reform  schemes  which  u  have  in- 
fested political  thought  for  centuries."  He  had  no 
belief  in  "  leaders  "  and  "  saviours  "  of  society,  or  in 
the  "  fanatical  individualism  of  our  time  which  at- 
tempts to  apply  the  analogy  of  cosmic  nature  to  so- 
ciety, and  seriously  debates  whether  the  members  of  a 

1  Coll.  E$sayst  i.  p.  423 ;  and  cf.  v.  p.  256. 


THE    CONSTRUCTOR  24! 

community  are  justified  in  using  their  strength  to  con- 
strain one  of  their  number  to  contribute  his  share  to 
the  maintenance  of  it,  or  even  to  prevent  him  from 
doing  his  best  to  destroy  it," '  and  which  would  limit 
the  exercise  of  State  rights  to  the  protection  of  its 
subjects  from  aggression.2  Here,  once  more,  he  had 
stirred  up  a  hornet's  nest  of  criticism  from  various 
quarters,  the  argument  often  taking  the  usual  form  of 
expletives.  But,  as  he  reminded  his  opponents,  his 
interest  in  these  questions  "  did  not  begin  the  day  be- 
fore yesterday  "  ;  reflection  and  observation  had  only 
deepened  conviction,  and  the  later  essays  on  Gov- 
ernment, Capital,  and  the  Struggle  for  Existence,  em- 
phasised the  position  which  he  had  taken  up  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  earlier.  Now,  as  then,  he  went  to 
the  heart  of  the  matter  in  insisting  on  the  funda- 
mental importance  of  dealing  with  the  population 
question,  since  with  short  commons  and  lack  of 
elbow-room  there  was  quick  shunting  of  the  ethical 
process. 

For  the  effort  of  ethical  man  to  work  towards  a 
moral  end  by  no  means  abolished,  perhaps  hardly 
modified,  the  deep-seated  organic  impulses  which 
impel  the  natural  man  to  follow  his  non-moral  course. 
One  of  the  most  essential  conditions,  if  not  the  chief 
cause,  of  the  struggle  for  existence,  is  the  tendency  to 
multiply  without  limit,  which  man  shares  with  all 

1  Coll.  Essays,  ix.  p.  83.  *  It>.,  i.  p.  258. 


242  HUXLEY 

living  things.  It  is  notable  that  "  increase  and  mul- 
tiply "  is  a  commandment  traditionally  much  older 
than  the  ten ;  and  that  it  is,  perhaps,  the  only  one 
which  has  been  spontaneously  and  ex  anirno  obeyed  by 
the  great  majority  of  the  human  race.  .But,  in  civ- 
ilised society,  the  inevitable  result  of  such  obedience 
is  the  reestablishment,  in  all  its  intensity,  of  that 
struggle  for  existence — the  war  of  each  against  all — 
the  mitigation  or  abolition  of  which  was  the  chief 
end  of  social  organisation.1 

"  There  is  no  discharge  in  that  war,"  and  the  strug- 
gle has  rather  increased  in  force  than  lessened  since 
Huxley  wrote  these  words.  Competition  becomes 
sharper ;  and  the  cry  for  protection  is  a  return  to  the 
narrow  ethics  of  the  tribe.  The  community  that 
trusts  to  old  repute  and  disdains  new  methods,  and 
that  artificially  reduces  each  member  of  its  industrial 
classes  to  a  common  level,  will  be  worsted  in  a  battle 
where  the  wounded  receive  no  quarter,  and  where 
starvation  is  the  penalty  of  surrender.  There  sur- 
vives in  many  parts  of  the  globe,  notably  in  thickly- 
peopled  China,  the  practice  of  partly  meeting  the  dif- 
ficulty of  excess  of  population  over  means  of  sub- 
sistence by  infanticide;  while  in  former  days,  all  the 
world  over,  the  ravages  wrought  by  famine,  war,  and 
pestilence  were  unchecked.  But  the  progress  of 
private  and  public  morality  has  steadily  tended  to  re- 
move the  effects  of  those  scourges,  and  the  finer 

1  Coll.  Essays,  ix.  p.  205. 


THE    CONSTRUCTOR  243 

spirits  of  the  race  dream  of  a  society  where  no  man 
shall  die  of  hunger,  and  no  family  mourn  a  member 
slain  in  battle ;  when  the  Golden  Age  of  ancient 
legend  shal^  be  fulfilled  on  the  earth. 

Dealing  with  these  islands,  Huxley  admits  the  jus- 
tice of  the  "  insolent  reproach  "  cast  by  Buonaparte. 
On  a  soil  which  can  feed  less  than  half  the  popula- 
tion, we  are  compelled  to  be  "  a  nation  of  shopkeep- 
ers." The  shopkeeping  implies  buying  and  selling, 
and  if  the  goods  offered  are  inferior  to  those  of  com- 
petitors, a  ruinous  reduction  in  exports  will  follow, 
leaving  a  large  proportion  of  the  population,  whose 
only  salvation  is  by  work,  with  nothing  to  eat.  A 
further  condition  must  be  social  stability.  There 
must  be  healthy  homes,  a  cultivation  of  thrift,  the  at- 
tainment of  a  fair  standard  of  material  comfort,  for 
where  la  miser e  reigns  there  is  inefficiency  and  handi- 
capping of  the  worker.  And  in  remarking  upon  the 
absence  of  these  conditions  in  many  quarters  of  great 
industrial  centres  from  London  downwards,  Huxley 
drives  home  the  fact  that  here,  suspending  their  dif- 
ferences, "  natural  science  and  religious  enthusiasm  " 
may  work  in  concord  towards  one  aim.  He  passes 
from  the  importance  of  State-endowed  education,  into 
which  no  theology  shall  intrude,  to  technical  training, 
the  cost  of  which  he  suggests  should  be  borne  by  the 
districts  benefited  by  it.  But  that  is  a  detail,  the  im- 


244  HUXLEY 

portant  thing  being  to  catch  the  "  small  percentage  of 
the  population  which  is  born  with  that  most  excellent 
quality,  a  desire  for  excellence,  or  with  special  apti- 
tude of  some  sort  or  another,  and  turn  <them  to  ac- 
count for  the  good  of  society,"  whose  highest  aim 
should  be  the  making  of  men,  not  of  millionaires; 
the  development  of  character,  not  the  equation  of 
"  success  "  with  the  "  accumulation  of  cash."  "  For 
the  increase  of  wealth — that  is,  of  the  means  of  com- 
fort— is  not,  necessarily,  good  in  itself;  everything 
depends  on  the  way  in  which  the  wealth  is  distributed 
and  its  effect  on  the  moral  character  of  the  nation."  l 

No  man  can  say  where  they  will  crop  up  ;  like  their 
opposites,  the  fools  and  the  knaves,  they  appear  some- 
times in  the  palace  and  sometimes  in  the  hovel ;  but 
the  great  thing  to  be  aimed  at — I  was  almost  going  to 
say,  the  most  important  end  of  all  social  arrangements 
— is  to  keep  these  glorious  sports  of  Nature  from 
being  either  corrupted  by  luxury  or  starved  by  poverty, 
and  to  put  them  into  the  position  in  which  they  can 
do  the  work  for  which  they  are  specially  fitted.2 

Throughout  the  papers  on  social  subjects  which  fill 
portions  of  the  first,  third,  and  ninth  volumes  of  the 
Collected  Essays,  criticism  is  followed  by  definite  sug- 
gestion. And  so  it  was  with  all  matters,  both  prac- 
tical and  speculative,  with  which  he  dealt ;  the  order 

1  Letters  from  John  Chinaman,  p.  27. 
«  Coll,  Essays,  ix.  p.  aio. 


THE    CONSTRUCTOR  245 

of  his  mind  was  architectonic.  To  regard  Huxley 
as  a  compound  of  Boanerges  and  Iconoclast  is  to 
show  entire  misapprehension  of  the  aims  which  in- 
spired his  labours.  In  Biology  his  discovery  of  the 
structure  of  the  Medusae  laid  the  foundations  of 
modern  zoology  ;  his  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  skull 
gave  a  firm  basis  to  vertebrate  morphology  ;  and  his 
luminous  exposition  of  the  pedigree  of  man  imported 
order  where  confusion  had  reigned.  In  the  more  im- 
portant matter  of  Education  he  formulated  principles 
whose  adoption  would  bring  out  the  best  that  is  in 
every  scholar,  and  inspire  him  with  love  of  whatever 
"is  of  good  report";  while  his  invention  of  the 
laboratory  system  of  zoological  teaching  has  been 
adopted  with  the  best  results  in  every  school  and  uni- 
versity of  repute.  In  Theology  he  separated  the 
accidental  elements  from  the  essential,  leaving  as 
residuum  a  religion  that,  coordinated  with  the  needs 
and  aspirations  of  human  nature,  would  find  its  high- 
est motive  and  its  permanency  in  an  ethic  based  on 
sympathy. 


NOTE  ON  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE 
UNKNOWABLE. 

SINCE  the  passing  of  the  foregoing  pages  through 
the  press,  the  following  extracts  from  letters  from 
Huxley  to  Mr.  F.  C.  Gould,  written  in  1889,  have 
appeared  in  the  Literary  Guide  of  January,  1902. 
They  are  an  interesting  addition  to  the  remarks  quoted 
on  page  141  : 

As  between  Mr.  Spencer  and  myself,  the  question 
is  not  one  of  "a  dividing  line,"  but  of  an  entire  and 
complete  divergence  as  soon  as  we  leave  the  founda- 
tions laid  by  Hume,  Kant,  and  Hamilton,  who  are 
my  philosophical  forefathers.  To  my  mind,  the 
"  Absolute  "  philosophies  were  finally  knocked  on  the 
head  by  Hamilton  ;  and  the  "  Unknowable,"  in  Mr. 
Spencer's  sense,  is  merely  the  Absolute  redivivus,  a 
sort  of  ghost  of  an  extinct  philosophy,  the  name  of  a 
negation  hocus-pocussed  into  a  sham  thing.  If  I  am 
to  talk  about  that  of  which  I  have  no  knowledge  at 
all,  I  prefer  the  good  old  word  God,  about  which  there 
is  no  scientific  pretence. 

I  have  long  been  aware  of  the  manner  in  which  my 
views  have  been  confounded  with  those  of  Mr. 
Spencer,  though  no  one  was  more  fully  aware  of  our 
divergence  than  the  latter.  Perhaps  I  have  done 
wrongly  in  letting  the  thing  slide  so  long,  but  I  was 
anxious  to  avoid  a  breach  with  an  old  friend.  .  .  . 
346 


NOTE  ON  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  UNKNOWABLE    247 

Whether  the  Unknowable  or  any  other  Noumenon 
exists  or  does  not  exist,  I  am  quite  clear  I  have  no 
knowledge  either  way.  So  with  respect  to  whether 
there  is  anything  behind  Force  or  not,  I  am  ignorant ; 
I  neither  affirm  nor  deny.  The  tendency  of  the 
human  mind  to  idolatry  is  so  strong  that,  faute  de 
mieux,  it  falls  down  and  worships  negative  abstrac- 
tions, as  much  the  creation  of  the  mind  as  the  stone 
idol  of  the  hands.  The  one  object  of  the  Agnostic 
(in  the  true  sense)  is  to  knock  this  tendency  on  the 
head  whenever  or  wherever  it  shows  itself.  Our 
physical  science  is  full  of  it. 


INDEX 


AGNOSTIC,  211. 

Britschli,  Professor,  147. 

Agnosticism,  212. 

Brown-Sequard,  Dr.,  45. 

Allman,  Professor,  76. 

Bunsen,  148. 

American  Civil  War,  25. 

Amphibia,  80. 
Anaximander,  116. 

CANON,  205. 

Ancestor-worship,  179. 
Ape  and  man,  113,  118,  121. 
Argyll,  Duke  of,  51. 

Carlyle,  3,  15. 
Carpenter,  Dr.,  4,  107,  128. 
Cell-unit,  69,  78. 
Cherubim,  189. 

Aristotle,  67. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  2. 
Articulate  speech,  136. 
Ascidian,  77. 
Atomic  theory,  155. 

Chimpanzee,  113. 
Christianity,  214. 
Church  and  reforms,  167. 
Clericalism,  54,  161,  172. 
Coelomata   7C. 

Authority,  1  60,  205. 

Consciousness,  154,  228. 

BABYLONIA,  190,  199. 
Backbone  of  man,  114. 

Copernicus,  138. 
Cowper-Temple  clause,  40. 
Cranks    IQ. 

Ba^ehot,  Walter,  17,  105. 
Balfour,  Mr.  A.  J.,  6l,  228. 
Bathybius,  50. 

Creation  story,  181,  188,  196. 
Cunningham,     Professor,     123, 

Bible  in  Board  Schools,  38. 
"      Huxley's  tribute  to,  38-40. 

I35»  *37- 
Cuvier,  68,  70,  182.    • 

Biological  time,  91. 

Black,  Dr.  Sutherland,  192,  204. 

DARWIN,  7,  24,  60,  72,  97,  107, 

Bonney,  Canon,  186. 

185- 

Brain  structure,  121. 

Death  sentences,  166. 

"      of  man  and  ape,  21,  22, 

Deceased  Wife's  Sister  Bill,  27. 

122. 

De  la  Beche,  Sir  Henry,  n. 

British  Association  at  — 

Deluge  story,  189,  195. 

Belfast,  49,  142. 

Demonology,  198-200,  206. 

Glasgow,  123,  155. 

Descartes,  49,  130,  152,  212. 

Liverpool,  45. 

Descent  of  Man,  1  10. 

Oxford,  20,  59,  108. 

Donnelly,  Sir  J.,  19. 

York,  79.      ' 

Draper,  Dr.,  21. 

British  Weekly,  220. 

Driver,  Dr.,  186,  189,  190,  192. 

249 

250 

Dubois,  Dr.,  132. 

EARTH,  AGE  OF  THE,  88. 
Eden  story,  1 88,  196,  226. 
Edinburgh,  24. 
Edinburgh  Review,  23. 
Education,  32-38,  245. 
Elohim,  175,  179- 
Embryology,  vertebrate,  77. 
Emerson,  197,  215. 
Encyclopedia  Biblica,  192,  200, 

220. 

Established  Church,  163. 
Ethics,  bases  of,  55,  228,  229- 

232. 

Ethics  and  Evolution,  59,  234. 
Evolution  and  Theism,  225. 
Exile  in  Babylon,  193,  199. 
Exploratio  Evangelica,  201. 

FARADAY,  73. 
Fayrer,  Sir  J.,  6. 
Fishes,  fossil,  79. 
Fiske,  John,  116. 
Flower,  Sir  W.  H.,  83. 
Forbes,  Dr.  Edward,  II,  78. 
Forster,  W.  E.,  40. 
Fossil  man,  131. 
Foster,  Sir  M.,  64,  80,  95. 
Fourth  Gospel,  222. 
Frazer,  Dr.,  178,  184. 
Free  will,  226. 

GADARENB  SWINE,  201,   204, 

217,  218. 

Garnett,  Dr.  R.,  64. 
Geological  time,  91. 
Ghost-theory,  176,  179. 
Gibbon,  Edward,  2,  13. 
Gibbon,  the,  117. 
Gladstone,  Mr.,  25,  56,  61,  181, 

206,  217. 
Goethe,  19,  84. 
Gore,  Bishop,  56,  197. 
Gorilla,  115. 

Gospels,  199,  203,  208,  220. 
Greek  speculation,  105. 
Green,  J.  R.,  162. 


INDEX 


HADES,  175. 
Haeckel,  Ernst,  76. 
Hartley,  David,  135. 
Harvey,  69. 
Heathorn,  Miss,  8,  II. 
Hebrews,  186,  190. 
Hobbes,  29,  152,  172. 
Hooker,  Sir  J.,  7,  29,  62,  99, 

108. 

Horse,  52,  81-83. 
Huggins,  Sir  W.,  149. 
Hume,  130,  150. 
"  Huxley's  layer,"  6. 

Impregnable    Rock     of    Holy 
Scripture,  183,  217. 

Infancy,  human,  1 17. 

Infanticide,  242. 

Inspiration,  194. 

Israelites,  173,  193. 

"          and  Polynesians,  177. 
"          ethics  of,  215,  226. 

JAHVEH   (Jehovah),    175,   181, 

194,  227. 

Jamaica  Committee,  26. 
Java,  132. 
Jesus,  199-202,  209,  210,  213, 

216. 

Jex  Blake,  Miss,  26. 
owett,  Professor,  41,  165,  172. 

KELVIN,  LORD,  88,89,  9'»  I5S- 
Kingsley,  Charles,  2,  16,  106. 
Kirchhoff,  149. 
Kuenen,  177. 

LABYRINTHODONTS,  80. 

Lamarck,  68,  70. 

Lancelet,  77. 

Lankester,    Professor  Ray,  64, 

77-95'  »59- 

Lefevre,  Mr.  Shaw,  44. 
Leibnitz,  129. 
Lessing,  3,  1 8. 
Life,  origin  of,  146. 
"      physical  basis  of,  49,  77, 

142. 
Linnaeus,  68,  86,  113. 


INDEX 


25I 


Linnean  Society,  99. 
Literature  and  science,  34. 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  18. 
Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  71,  98,  no, 
112. 

MALLOCK,  MR.  W.  H.,  51. 

Malpighi,  68. 
Malthus,  97. 
Man  and  ape,  113-122. 

"        brute,  125. 

"        gorilla,  115. 
Man's  Place  in  Nature,  24,  28, 

112,  131. 

Mariner,  William,  178. 
Marsh,  Professor,  82. 
Materialism,  130,  144,  152. 
Mathematics,  90. 
Matter,  140,  141,  147. 
Medusae,  9,  65,  74,  76,  245. 
Mental  apparatus,  126. 
Meredith,  George,  236. 
Metaphysical  Society,  159,  212. 
Metaphysics,  151. 
Micah,  215. 
Miracles,  202,  206. 
Mitchell,    Mr.    Chalmers,    65, 

113. 

Mitral  valve,  163. 
Mrvart,    Dr.   St.   George,    128, 

165,  234. 
Morals,  226-234. 
Morley,   John,    106,    162,   164, 
185. 

NAZARENES,  213,  224. 
Necromancy,  175. 
Neo-Darwinism,  103. 
Neo-Lamarckism,  103. 
Nervous  system,  130. 
New  Testament.     See  Gospels. 
New  York,  51,  82. 

OKEN,  19,  84. 

Origin  of  Species,  20,  23,  67, 

69.  79.  97.  I04.  I07»  I39. 

165. 
Origin  of  Species,   Coming  of 

Age  of  the,  28,  59- 


Osborn,  Professor,  118. 
Ourang-utan,  116. 
Owen,  20,  58,  71,  84,  107,  218. 
"       and  Huxley,  20,  22,  85, 

I23- 

Oxford,  20,  59. 
Oxford,  Bishop  of,  21,  23,  107, 

ai& 

PAGET,  SIR  JAMES,  129. 
Palaeontology,  79,  86. 
Patriarchal  age,  190-192. 
Pentateuch,  72,  181,  186. 
Perry,  Professor,  94. 
Picton,  Mr.  Allanson,  42. 
Pithecanthropus  erectus,  132. 
Population  question,  242. 
Preformation,  129. 
Primates,  113,  118. 
Protoplasm,  69,  142,  144. 
Psychical     identities     between ' 

man  and  brute,  126. 
Pusey,  Dr.,  58,  186. 

Quarterly  Review,  23,  102,  107. 

RATTLESNAKE,  7,  66,  76,  177. 
Religion  and  science,  168. 
Reville,  Dr.,  56,  181. 
Richardson,  Sir  J.,  7. 
Rileyism,  41. 
Rocks,  age  of,  91. 
Romanes,  Dr.,  218,  224. 
Romanes  Lecture,  59,  235. 
Royal  College  of  Science,  53,  57. 

"      Commissions,  47. 

"      Society,  9,  44. 48,  53.  6°, 

86. 
Russell,  Mr.  George,  184. 

SABBATH,  188. 

Sacerdotalism,  164. 

Salisbury,  Lord,  59,  6l,  92. 

Salvation  Army,  27. 

Sartor  Resartus,  3,  15. 

Saul,  174. 

Sayce,  Professor,  189,  190. 

Schleiden,  74. 

School  Board  for  London,  31. 

Schwann,  74,  77. 


252 


INDEX 


Science  and  religion,  168. 

Science,  training  in,  5,  32. 

Selborne,  Lord,  184. 

Sense-impressions,  154. 

Sheol,  175,  1 80. 

Skull,  origin  of,  19,  84,  245. 

Slavery,  25. 

Smith,  Dr.  G.,  196. 

Solar  heroes,  191. 

Soul,  origin  of,  129. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  2,  4,  24,  71, 

104,  140,  227,  246. 
Spirit  and  matter,  156. 
Spirits,  belief  in,  199. 
Spiritualism,  165. 
Stanley,  Bishop,  7,  9. 

Captain,  7. 

Stars,  constitution  of,  149. 
Stephen,  Leslie,  61. 
Style,  28. 
Sun's  age,  90. 

"     constitution,  149. 

TECHNICAL  TRAINING,  35,  243. 

Tel-el-Amarna,  193. 

Ten  Commandments,  226. 

Teraphim,  176. 

Theology,  characteristics  of,  37, 

Theology,    Evolution    of,    159, 

166,  172,  214. 
Theology  in  schools,  37. 


Thirlwall,  Bishop,  159. 
Thiselton-Dyer,  Sir  W.  T.,  16. 
Thummhn,  176. 
Tidal  friction,  89. 
Titles,  56. 
Tonga  Islands,  178. 
Tristram,  Canon,  106. 
Tyndall,  49,  51. 

UNKNOWABLE     DOCTRINE    OF 
THE,  140,  247. 

Urim,  174,  176. 

VERTEBRATE  SKULL,  19,  84. 
Victory,  the,  6,  58. 
Virchow,  Professor,  9. 
Vivisection,  45-47. 
Von  Baer,  69,  74,  75. 

WACE,  DR.,  206,  209,  219. 
Wallace,   A.   R.,   91,  98,   116, 

127,  144. 
Weismann,  103. 
Westminister  Review,  101. 
Whewell,  Dr.,  107. 
Wilberforce,    Bishop,    21,    23, 

107,  218. 
Witchcraft,  208. 
Witch  of  Endor,  174. 
Women,  emancipation  of,  26. 

YALE  COLLEGE,  52. 


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